James MacDonald » Biblical Theology Worship Church Gospel Finance

Do you pray, or just think prayerful thoughts to God? R13 speaker James MacDonald shares what he wishes he had known about prayer, worship, finances, and more.

What I wish I’d known about worship

I grew up in a church that was all “truth worship.” But in John 4:24, Jesus said, “God is spirit!” It’s an important point. We have to communicate with God from our spirit to his Spirit.

Here is what I mean by truth-worship in the church of my youth. We’d sing great hymns and other songs that had so much majestic theology, but the truth came racing by at a thousand miles per hour. All you could say at the end of it was, “Wow, that’s really true.” It was an exchange of factual information about Almighty God. We were learning and repeating what we learned—but our spirits were rarely engaged in worship.

What God wants to know is not, “Do you know this about me?” but, “Do you care about the things that you know about me?” Response is essential—your spirit responding and resonating with the truth your mind knows about God. When you start to get those things together, some powerful things happen.

What I wish I’d known about service

If you gave me fifty young people today and told me my task was to get them excited about Jesus, I’d put them to work serving the Lord. Certainly, I’d give them responsibilities equal to their level of maturity, but it would be genuine serving of Christ and others in ways that matter. Children and families ministering together are seeds of real ministry, capable of bearing great fruit later on.

Nothing inflames your passion for the kingdom like rolling up your sleeves and getting involved yourself. I don’t know any people in effective ministry who began as a result of something they learned; they all grew into ministry as a result of what they saw God do with their efforts on behalf of others.

What God wants to know is, “Do you care about the things that you know about me?”Tweet

Yes, I think kids should be in Bible study, but their attention and interest will be ratcheted up to a different level when they come to it with the needs and problems of the world and their neighbors fresh on their minds. Nothing drives you to open God’s Word like a real person asking you hard questions about your faith. The discipline of serving is an absolute accelerant in the process of spiritual formation.

What I wish I’d known about finances & obedience

The story of Elijah and the widow of Zarephath (1 Kings 17) helped me see that times of drought are not times of diminished opportunity and not times for delayed obedience. Nor are they times of deferred responsibility. When times are tough, we don’t withdraw to our own little “tents of need.” Instead, we step toward the Lord with greater faith and obedience, and experience how God will meet us! Give what you have and you will have all you need. Once you see this principle in one place in Scripture, you find it everywhere.

When times are hardest and most difficult, we cannot pull back into ourselves. I’ve had to learn that my response must not be, “It’s time to put me first.” Because God is giving an amazing opportunity to move more boldly toward him and discover that when we faithfully offer to him what little we have, he will meet us in ways we have not known before.

What I wish I’d known about prayer

The biggest breakthrough I’ve ever had regarding prayer came during a time of loneliness, when I realized I needed to learn how to spend time with God in prayer. I was challenged by something I read to pray out loud as a deliberate choice, even when I was alone.

The discipline of serving is an absolute accelerant in the process of spiritual formation.Tweet

I had never prayed audibly in private prayer—I was always thinking what I hoped were prayerful thoughts to God, but I had never heard my own voice in private conversation with him. Had I been asked at the time, I probably would have said that since God spoke to me through his Word in an inaudible voice, it had seemed natural to respond the same way.

But when I began to practice this discipline of praying out loud, I realized it focused my thoughts and helped me resist meandering prayer times. Kneeling and speaking to God revolutionized my prayer practice and made the times with him significantly more intimate. I was no longer thinking off the cuff, on the run, fending off other intruding thoughts. I was on my knees, before my Father, doing my best to put my thoughts into words in his presence.

What I wish I’d known about fellowship

It saddens me to say I can count on the fingers of my hands those whom I personally know to be willing to engage in a multiple-decade commitment to true, biblical fellowship.

When times are hardest and most difficult, we cannot pull back into ourselves.Tweet

Fellowship is the crucible of sanctification. God is always working to refine qualities in your life and mine, and he has determined that this process cannot happen without our connection with each other at the fellowship level. But these days, people do esteem themselves better than others. There’s a low tolerance for bearing with the shortcomings in one another that must be part of authentic fellowship in a fallen world. Which is why fellowship—real, biblical relationship—is a discipline, not a scheduled event that includes coffee and pastries.

What I wish I’d known about men

What does it take to make men move to a deeper level of conversation than the weather, sports, and whether the Cubs will make it this year? Men need two things before they will reveal significant aspects of themselves.

First, they need a certainty of confidentiality. There’s a lot of shame involved with men’s sin, and they won’t disclose when they are not confident about confidentiality.

Second, men need reciprocation. Men aren’t interested in unburdening their hearts and then just hearing you say in return, “Wow, that’s tough.” You have to meet disclosure with disclosure—and you will probably have to go first.

 

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You can join James MacDonald at the 2013 Resurgence Conference 

and the Act Like Men Conference.

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