Praying Grace E-Book

David A. Holland

• Herausgeber: BroadStreet Publishing Group, LLC
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Seitenzahl: 133

Beschreibung

ECPA Bronze Milestone Sales Award for more than 100,000 sold. Transform Your Prayer Life in 55 Days. For far too many believers, prayer is a fruitless, frustrating, joyless exercise. They know they ought to do it, but it rarely happens because there is little expectation that it will change anything. There is another way to pray: an exciting, joyous way that brings heaven's power to earth and makes breakthroughs a daily reality. Praying Grace is a 55-day journey of discovery and hope created to: • help your heart absorb the full implications of Jesus' finished work on the cross, • lead you to a deep revelation of God's goodness and faithfulness, • ground your identity in who God says you are, and • model a form of praying that proclaims rather than pleads, making you a true partner with God. Get ready to discover how to pray from victory rather than struggle for victory. Take hold of the power of Praying Grace.  

Leseprobe

BroadStreet Publishing Group, LLC.

Savage, Minnesota, USA

Broadstreetpublishing.com

Praying Grace:55 Meditations and Declarations on the Finished Work of Christ

Copyright ©2020 Inprov, Ltd.

978-1-4245-6116-2 (softcover)

978-1-4245-6118-6 (faux leather)

978-1-4245-6117-9 (ebook)

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Scripture quotations marked (AMP) are taken from the Amplified® Bible, Copyright © 2015 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. www.lockman.org. Scriptures are taken from the English Standard Version® (ESV®), Copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked (CJB) are taken from the Common Jewish Bible. Copyright © 1998 by David H. Stern. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked (HCSB) are taken from the Holman Christian Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1999, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2009 by Holman Bible Publishers. Used by permission. Holman Christian Standard Bible®, Holman CSB®, and HCSB® are federally registered trademarks of Holman Bible Publishers. Scripture quotations marked (MEV) are taken from the Modern English Version. Copyright © 2014 by Military Bible Association. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked (MSG) are taken from THE MESSAGE, Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson. Used by permission of NavPress. All rights reserved. Represented by Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. Scripture quotations marked (NASB) are taken from the New American Standard Bible®, Copyright ©1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation, La Habra, CA. All rights reserved. Used by Permission. www.lockman.org. Scripture quotations marked (NIV) are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™ Scripture quotations marked (NKJV) are taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, Copyright ©1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved. Tree of Life (TLV) Translation of the Bible. Copyright © 2015 by The Messianic Jewish Family Bible Society. Scripture quotations marked (TPT) are from The Passion Translation®. Copyright © 2017, 2018 by Passion & Fire Ministries, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. ThePassionTranslation.com. Scripture quotations marked (VOICE) are taken from The Voice™. Copyright © 2012 by Ecclesia Bible Society. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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CONTENTS

Foreword

Introduction

Escape the “Try Harder” Trap

“Tetelestai!”

Praying from Rest

The Law, “Fulfilled”

The Myth of the “Yes” Button

You, in Him—He, in You

The Conviction of God’s Fatherhood

Faith Is a Force, Not a Work

Unspeakable Power

Pray Like a Commander, Not a Beggar

The Radical Consistency of Grace

Active Waiting

From Ownership to Possession

A Relationship, Not a Transaction

The Eyes of Your Heart

One Foundational Assumption

Look Into the Face of Love

Our Fallible, Foolable Natural Senses

Where Supernatural Power Blooms

Choose the Right Covenant

Slaying Your Goliaths

Secure in His Hands, Blessed in His Truth

The Power of a Clean Conscience

The Power of Heart Confidence

Comprehensive Salvation

The Healing-Forgiveness Connection

The Opposite of Fear

No Condemnation

What God Has Declared Clean

Righteousness and Restitution

Your Father’s Love

Love Fulfills the Law

Glory by Degrees

The Greatest Gift

Abundant Mercy, Overflowing Grace

Seeing God

Ask Big

The Blood

Faithful and True

Single-Minded Faith

Self-Disqualifying

The First Exchange: Our Sin for His Righteousness

The Second Exchange: Our Curse for His Blessing

The Third Exchange: Our Rejection for His Acceptance

The Fourth Exchange: Our Sickness for His Health

The Fifth Exchange: Our Shame for His Glory

The Sixth Exchange: Our Poverty for His Abundance

The Seventh Exchange: Our Death for His Life

Hearing Is Following

Stay in Grace

Your Bubble of Favor

The Power to Bless

The Adventure of Prayer

Honeycomb Lying on the Ground

Praying Grace

About the Author

FOREWORD

Laurie and I have been profoundly impacted by the liberating message of grace we have received in recent years. We’ve been amazed at the results as we’ve learned to pray from victory instead of praying for victory.

It’s no exaggeration to say that a fuller understanding of the wonders of God’s grace has transformed our lives and enriched our walk with God in countless ways. But in no area has that transformation been greater than in the area of our prayer lives.

Understanding that God’s throne truly is a throne of grace; grasping the full scope of Jesus’s finished work on the cross; and getting a deeper revelation of God’s goodness and faithfulness has changed us. Each of these discoveries have combined to make our praying more exciting and more effective. Far more effective!

That’s why we welcome this devotional by David A. Holland. We’re thrilled to be able to direct friends to a resource that will help them renew their minds to the realities of grace, and model grace-based praying for them. This devotional takes you by the hand and, in 55 days, teaches you how to pray from a clear understanding of the victory Jesus has already won for you.

In the Bible, the number “5” symbolizes grace. That makes “55” an excellent number for the meditations and prayers on the pages that follow. We encourage you to spend some time with each of these for the next 55 days. We’re confident you’ll discover what we have learned. Namely, that life becomes much more exciting and fulfilling when you learn to pray grace-based prayers.

Matt & Laurie Crouch

INTRODUCTION

“I wish I could point people to a resource that taught believers how to pray from victory rather than for victory.”

That off-hand comment by TBN President Matt Crouch during a phone call provided the inspiration for the unique devotional you hold in your hands. When I heard the phrase “praying from victory,” I immediately recognized the powerful paradigm to which Matt was referring.

He was talking about an utterly biblical, but poorly understood, way of approaching prayer that has profoundly impacted my own prayer life. Which is why I quickly raised my hand and said I would love to have the privilege of fulfilling that wish.

Creating this devotional was a labor of love and passion. The revolutionary truths that unfold on these pages are precious to me. They’ve not only transformed my life and relationship with my heavenly Father, they’ve enabled me to pray with more power and efficacy than I dreamed possible. Indeed, I have told the members of The Cup & Table Co.—the wonderful community of believers it is my privilege to pastor and teach—that this book contains the things that I most want the people I love to understand and embrace.

I want you to understand and embrace these liberating truths, too. I know that if you will, you’ll never pray the same way again. Each devotional concludes with a declarative prayer. In other words, a prayer that puts you in the position of partnering with God by giving voice to His will for you and for those around you.

Get ready to discover the power and joys of Praying Grace.

David A. Holland

Escape the “Try Harder” Trap

There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who

enters God’s rest also rests from their works, just as God did from his.

HEBREWS 4:9–10 NIV

It has been said that the last 2,000 years of teaching and preaching on how to successfully live the Christian life and please God could actually be encapsulated in a simple two-word exhortation:

Try harder.

Do you keep stumbling over the same sin or habit? Try harder. Are you struggling to love unlovely and obnoxious people? Try harder. Failing time and again to rise an hour early for prayer and Bible reading? Try harder. Not giving enough? Serving enough? Witnessing enough? Attending church services enough? Try harder.

You know the prescription. Bear down. Double up. Lather, rinse, repeat—in an endless, frustrating, shame-soaked cycle of defeat and failure that robs you of your confidence before God and keeps you feeling like the only Christian in the world who isn’t properly doing all the things.

None of that sounds very restful, does it? Yet, rest is precisely what we are called to in Jesus; particularly, rest from striving and straining to earn God’s approval.

The fact is, God sent Jesus so we could become restful human beings, not busy human doings. God paid an enormous price and lavished His grace upon us to restore us—not to good behavior—but to Himself, to reconnect us to the Source of life and love.

When you live and rest in that connection, all those other good and noble things overflow out of your life organically and effortlessly. Witnessing: the peace, joy, and confidence that shines from you when you rest in Him becomes an irresistible beacon to the lost and hurting. Love: when you are secure in God’s love and acceptance, you become unoffendable, and naturally capable of more patience and grace than you thought possible.

We have all tried the “try harder” approach. It doesn’t work. Grace does.

PRAYER OF DECLARATION

Heavenly Father, I cease from my futile labors. I no longer strive to earn what I cannot possibly earn, to merit what I will never deserve. Instead, I rejoice and rest in my connection to You through Your Son. He is the vine, and I am a connected branch.

I declare today that in Jesus, Your love, Your power, Your goodness, and Your empowering grace all flow through me—producing fruit naturally, and shaping my desires and appetites.

Good and noble things overflow out of my life organically and effortlessly. Peace, joy, and confidence shine from me, making me an irresistible beacon to the lost and hurting. Because I am absolutely secure in Your love and acceptance, I am unoffendable, patient, and full of grace for others. For me, every day is a day of Sabbath rest.

“Tetelestai!”

So when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, “It is finished!”

And bowing His head, He gave up His spirit.

JOHN 19:30 NKJV

The Savior’s final words from the cross were a prayer of childlike faith: “Father, into your hands I entrust My spirit” (Luke 23:46 HCSB). Only moments earlier, the witnesses gathered around the dying Savior heard Him shout something else, a single word that was more of a Greek accounting term: “Tetelestai!”

Our English Bible translates that term in a way that drains it of the legal and financial connotations it clearly carried for hearers of Jesus’ day. The best most can come up with is the plain-vanilla phrase, “It is finished.”

Yet, tetelestai does not mean merely that a thing has concluded. It does not simply indicate that the curtain has come down and the show is over or “The End.” No, to declare a thing tetelestai is to decree that all has been accomplished, everything formerly lacking has now been supplied. The wound has been healed. The obligation has been met. The debt has been completely satisfied!

Jesus’ Tetelestai! declared an end to man’s Tower-Of-Babel religious striving to build a ladder back to heaven. God Himself had come down and done what no fallen man could do: satisfy mankind’s staggering legal and spiritual obligation to divine justice.

In an 1861 sermon, Charles Spurgeon explained what Jesus meant when He cried from the cross, “It is finished!”

The Savior meant that the satisfaction which He rendered to the justice of God was finished. The debt was now, to the last farthing, all discharged. The atonement and propitiation were made once for all, and forever, by the one offering made in Jesus’s body on the tree (Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Volume 7, Sermon 47, December 1, 1861).

Powerful, grace-based praying begins with an understanding of Jesus’ cry of tetelestai. To pray prayers of grace starts with the humbling, liberating realization that Christ has done all the work for our atonement. All that remains is to receive it.

TO DECLARE A THING

TETELESTAI IS TO DECREE

THAT ALL HAS BEEN

ACCOMPLISHED.

PRAYER OF DECLARATION

Father, I thank You for sending Jesus to pay my debt in full. Through His sacrifice, the demands of holy justice woven into the fabric of the universe at the moment of creation have been fully satisfied. I rejoice in the glorious truth that I can come to You with no sense of obligation, indebtedness, or shame.

Lord Jesus, thank You for Your willingness to come. I will not insult Your grace by seeking to add a single thing to a work You declared complete with your shout of “Tetelestai!” nor will I try to pay against a debt You have declared, “Paid in full.” I will humble myself and gratefully receive everything You died to provide for me; everything Your Word declares is mine.

I have everything I need pertaining to life and godliness, down to the smallest detail. Your will is being done in my life here on earth just as it is in heaven!

Praying from Rest

For the one who has entered His rest has himself also rested from his works,

as God did from His. Therefore let us be diligent to enter that rest,

so that no one will fall, through following the same example of disobedience.

HEBREWS 4:10–11 NASB

Adam and Eve’s labor to create fig leaf garments to cover their shame represents mankind’s very first religious work. Cain’s rejected offering was the second (and that rejection led to the first murderous rage.)

From the Tower of Babel, to the meticulous rules and regulations of the Pharisees, to all the other world religions, right up to our modern day—fallen man’s impulse has been to work or earn our way back into the Garden of Eden.

The coming of the Son of God to earth revealed that the Father had a very different plan for restoring us to His fellowship and blessings. One which would require nothing from us except the humility to recognize that we had nothing to contribute to our redemption, that our best attempts at righteousness were disgusting, smelly rags, and that all we could do is receive, enjoy, and share His blessings with others.

The writer Of Hebrews compared this to God resting on day seven after six days of creation work. And, those who refuse to rest are compared to those Israelites who refused, through fear, to enter the Promised Land. We are exhorted to be extra sure—to “be diligent”—that we, too, have rested from our futile work.

Such diligence is necessary because it’s so easy to slip back into works mode. We’re surrounded by well-meaning people who try to make us afraid that we’re not doing enough to earn or qualify for God’s favor. Don’t do it. Remain at rest. Pray from that position of rest.

PRAYER OF DECLARATION

Father, I recognize and accept that I have nothing to contribute to my redemption. Forgive me for ever trying to “sew fig leaves” to cover my shame or build my own tower back to You. I repent of trying to work or earn my way back into the “garden” of Your presence and to the sweetness of Your fellowship.