Words of wisdom from Kenny Grant

What a great revival we had this past week with Rev. Kenny Grant.

As promised, I have collected some of the one-liners that Brother Kenny shared with us this week.

Here are a few quotations:

"I want to be brief tonight, but I probably won't be."

"If you can't say 'Amen,' say 'Oh, me.'"

"We're fooling ourselves if we say we worship God and we live like common yard dogs."

"We make a big deal out of building God a house because we don't want Him in our own house."

Talking about men being under Christ's headship before being head of the home: "You gotta be under what you're supposed to be under before you can be over what you're supposed to be over."

"Missing men produce broken boys."

"A wife's job is to complete her husband, not to finish him off."

"The church is like Noah's ark; there might be a stench on the inside but there's a storm on the outside."

"Sin takes you further than you planned on staying and costs you more than you planned on paying."

Regarding the prodigal son and the elder brother: "The one who started out out, ended up in, and the one who started out in ended up out."

"Love isn't a fall. Love is a climb."

"Love isn't blind. Love just knows how to overlook the junk it can see."

"Safe sex is a myth. You can't do an unsafe thing in a safe way."

"The only safe sex is sacred sex. And the only sacred sex is married sex."

"Girls will play at sex because they really want love, and boys will play at love because they really want sex."

"I know we're not perfect people and this isn't a perfect world, but this Bible is a perfect book and we cannot dumb it down."

"Failure doesn't have to be final."

Prayer: Does it make any difference?

Philip Yancey has done it again. His book The Jesus I Never Knew is the best book I have read on Jesus. His book, What's So Amazing About Grace? is the best book I have read about grace. Now his book, Prayer: Does it make any difference? is the best book I have read on prayer. That is a strong statement for me to make, even as a person who loves the writings of Philip Yancey. I have read dozens of great books on prayer, including great books by people like Richard Foster, Ole Hallesby, Bill Hybels and Oswald Chambers.

What sets Yancey's book apart is his brutal honesty about the struggles people have with prayer, balanced with inspiring stories of how prayer has changed people's lives. Yancey is particularly self-effacing about his own struggles with prayer and his feelings of inadequacy in failing to pray. Yet by the end of the book, it is apparent that Yancey is much more of a prayer warrior than he admits at first.

The books' 22 chapters are divided into five parts. Part One, "Keeping Company with God," explores what prayer is. He points out that Jesus "virtually invented private prayer" (p. 63).

Part Two, "Unraveling the Mysteries," discusses frustrations and questions that people have about the effectiveness of prayer. He gives a disarmingly profound answer to those who ask why we should bother to pray when some prayers seem unanswered: "Why pray? Because Jesus did" (p. 78). Later in the book he gives another simple but true answer: "Why pray? God likes to be asked" (p. 143).

Part Three, "The Language of Prayer," discusses how to pray. He gives great practical advice on handling distractions to prayer, and reminds the reader that there is no right way to pray, because different styles of prayer fit different personalities. "Keep it simple, keep it honest, and keep it up" he advises (p. 191).

Part Four, "Prayer Dilemmas," returns to questions people have about prayer, especially unanswered prayer. I would disagree slightly with his defintion of "unanswered prayer," as he includes in that definition prayers that receive a "no" answer. Yancey's approach to prayer for physical healing is balanced and insightful, as he reveals scientific research showing healing that cannot be explained, while recognizing the importance of using medicine and how God usually works through natural processes.

Part Five, "The Practice of Prayer," provides motivation for faithful praying.

Yancey's writing includes frequent illustrations from a variety of sources, from popular culture to literature to world history. Being a famous author and editor for Christianity Today, Yancey has received many letters about prayer, and he shares this correspondence throughout the book. One unique quality about this book is that each chapter includes a couple of sidebars written by others, sharing personal experiences in prayer. For example, on p. 224-225 a prostitute whose prayer for deliverence resulted in her miraculous salvation. Although each sidebar story can be read alone, they relate to the chapters where they are inserted.

I disagree with Yancey in chapter 7, when he discusses Abraham's prayer that "changed" God's mind. Yancey does not notice that Genesis 18:33 says that it is God who ended the conversation with Abraham, not Abraham with God, so God did not change His mind.Also, I believe that Yancey misinterprets Job 21:15 on p. 95. There he says that Job asks "What would we gain by praying to him?" However, the context of the chapter implies that Job quotes the wicked in this passage; Job does not say that he himself questions prayer.

It is remarkable that these were the only places where I disagreed with Yancey, because he makes bold and strong statements throughout the book. I am sure many people will be offended or disagree with some things he said, just because he asserts so many strong opinions. But this is one of the values of the book: Yancey stimulates you to think deeply about prayer, and challenges your preconceived notions. Yet he does so while remaining fiercely loyal to the Bible's teachings on prayer.

In summary, this book is destined to be a classic book on prayer, useful for group study or personal review and study over and over again.

“How Do You Pray for a Soldier?”

The year was 1969. My father, U.S. Army Chaplain Robert H. Rogers, was serving in Vietnam. Every day I prayed for him. My cousin, James would always pray, “God bless our soldiers,” but that got old, hearing him say the same thing over and over. I wish back then that James and I had read Psalm 140. Then we would know how to pray for the my dad and all of the troops.
First, we should pray for the soldier’s safety. Psalm 140 almost sounds like a description of terrorists, as the prayer opens by saying, “Rescue me, O LORD, from evil men; protect me from men of violence, who devise evil plans in their hearts and stir up war every day.” Verse 4 is a prayer to “protect me from men of violence,” and then verse 7 on the Lord who is “my strong deliverer, who shields my head in the day of battle…”
Second, we should pray for justice to prevail. Some people think we should not pray for soldiers at all, because war is violent. However, most Christians agree that there is such a thing as a “just war,” when the soldier’s actions can prevent a greater evil. Certainly the battles fought by God’s people in the Bible imply that. Psalm 140 calls for justice. We read in verse 8, “do not grant the wicked their desires, O LORD; do not let their plans succeed, or they will become proud.” This verse reminds me of those evil men who wanted to prevent Iraqis from having free elections. The psalmist prays in verses 11-12, “may disaster hunt down men of violence,” and prays for “justice for the poor.”
Third, we should pray for our own faith to increase. After a pause, called “Selah,” at the end of verse 5, he begins the prayer again in verse 6 with a statement of personal trust: “O LORD, I say to you, ‘You are my God.’ Hear, O LORD, my cry for mercy.” Then Psalm 140 ends with the confident hope that the upright will “live in Your presence.” Those soldiers who died in battle can know that their deaths are not in vain, for they served their nation well. And those soldiers who trusted in Jesus Christ as personal Savior and Lord can know that they will live in God’s presence in Heaven, as verse 13 proclaims.
I was at Boy Scout camp when my PawPaw showed up early to rush me to the small airport in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. My Dad had come home from Vietnam several days earlier than expected. I watched as a bronze-looking man got off the little plane and walked across the hot concrete, and my Mom rushed to his arms, tears running down her face, to welcome him home.
Max Lucado, in his book The Applause of Heaven, says that one day we will get off at Heaven’s airport, and there will be One whose nail-scarred hands will stretch from His robe, as He applauds our service on earth and our arrival home.
Yes, we can pray for that!