why pray – Page 6 – Jesus @ 2 am blogs and podcast

Loving God 201, Part 6: An Easy Way to Pray -The Daily Office

January 29, 2016January 29, 2016Kirk WinslowLeave a comment

What if I told you, you could build a life of meaningful connection to God in a matter of minutes a day? Really! I know it sounds like a cheap hook for a diet pill, but it happens in this case to be true. You can build a habit of prayer in minutes a day by using one of the most classic tools in the history of the church: the daily office.

In this episode we continue our introduction to prayer by looking at one of the most basic – and most helpful – practices of the church: the daily office (as in the “official” prayer for the day).

The daily office dates to prayer practices of pre-Christian Judaism and is a set of biblical readings, psalms and short prayers that allow the community of faith to pray together, no matter where we are.

If you already know the daily office(s), this will be a look at the theory behind why it works. If you are you’ve never experienced praying the office (or praying the hours), here is a link to a quick start guide to the daily office a wrote a few months ago.

Praying the office changed my spiritual life forever, and I strongly encourage you to give it a go!

Loving God 101, Part 7: So Many Voices in My Head! (Discernment Cont’d)

July 23, 2015July 23, 2015Kirk WinslowLeave a comment

Learning to “hear” God’s voice (i.e., “discernment”) actually begins by learning what is not God’s voice.

That is to say, each of us arrives to our relationship with God with many voices in our head – the voices of our family, our culture, our friends…the voice of Reason, of our deepest hopes, our deepest fears. Indeed, our inner stage is crowded with actors repeating their lines, each calling us in a different directions.

Ignatius (of Loyola) reminds us that one of those voices is God. God is actively trying to engage with us, not hiding afar off until we prove ourselves worthy. But God’s voice is often drown out by the clamor of all the others making demands upon our will.

As we seek to discern God’s voice from the crowd, we do best to first identify as many of the others as we can. Not to judge or dismiss them outright (our families and friends and intellects and passions can have many good things to say). Rather, we simply want to become aware of who is saying what. When a voice calls me strongly, which voice is it? And does God have an alternative word to offer?

This is a sermon that was originally presented at Canvas (a Presbyterian church in Irvine, CA), February 22, 2015. To learn more about Canvas, click here!

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Loving God 101, Part 6: Freedom (Really!) in Confession and Repentance

June 27, 2015July 21, 2015Kirk WinslowLeave a comment

For most of us “confession” does not sound like a very liberating idea. For me it used to conjure images of self-loathing, as I enumerated my sins with with heaps of guilt on the side. (Martin Luther was plagued by such feelings early in his life – often returning to confession right after he left in the belief he wasn’t quite contrite enough the first 10 times…) How tragic!

The truth – from a biblical perspective – is that confession is meant to be a source of liberation and new life! God does not need to hear our sins so as to forgive them (as though the omniscient God is unaware). And, as we’ve seen, atonement comes not from our confessions, but by means of the cross. (It is not our efforts that accomplish our welcome before God or the forgiveness of sin, but the redeeming work of Jesus.)

What, then, is the purpose of confession? And what does it mean to repent? And how does the process of confession and repentance bring us to new health, vitality and joy in the life of faith?

This is a sermon that was originally presented at Canvas (a Presbyterian church in Irvine, CA), February 15, 2015. To learn more about Canvas, click here!

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