Pete's Blog

• the gang lords and drug dealers in the Jane and Finch area (Toronto gang hotspot) to find Christ.
• abortion doctors to be converted. Similarly, pray that a Canadian will be raised up who will fight for the unborn as William Wilberforce fought for enslaved Africans.
• University physics professors to know the true age of the earth, biology professors to know where humans came from, philosophy professors to know that absolutes exist and religion professors to know that the Bible is from God, so that they stop leading generation after generation of students astray.
• the United Church of Canada, the Anglican Church of Canada and the other liberal protestant denominations to have a revolution within themselves where they find themselves more conservative (i.e., believing the Bible).
• a theological thinker of the weight (not literally) and stature of Augustine to be given to Canada. I mention this one recalling that Mark Dever, when he visited the tank where Ambrose baptized Augustine, prayed for God to let him take part in calling great men to the ministry of the Word.
• the tens of thousands of immigrants moving to Canada every week to come to faith; there could be such an amazing foretaste of heaven, of every nation, tongue and tribe, within these borders.
• your pastor's sermons to be published in the local newspaper every week, as Charles Spurgeon's were, reaching so many people in your community with the Gospel.

Labels: Abbreviations, Prayer, Resources

I read this article yesterday on an issue that's being put on the ballot in the American election in November.

A proposal to define a fertilized human egg as a person will land on Colorado's ballot this November, marking the first time that the question of when life begins will go before voters anywhere in the nation.

Labels: Politics, Prayer, Resources

Labels: Abbreviations, Bible, Friends, Manhood, Ministry, Prayer

I read a blog entry about prayer. Really convicting.

Labels: Prayer

I’m looking back on the four years that I’ve served at Carleton. I could have been bolder, taken more initiative, had more faith, read more books – and the list goes on. It was only just now that I realized that I could have prayed more.

This morning the Lord revealed that my ambitions are too small. I want to get married. I want to plant a church. I want to reach the lost with the Gospel. I want to see Africa healed of all of its aches. A common glance at those doesn’t immediately reveal a problem. However, there is a systematic problem. These are all finite goals. It’s not Jesus. Let me illustrate this by elaborating on the first ambition that I listed.

I’ve been listening lately to a Podcast from Focus on the Family called The Boundless Show, produced for Young Adults. It talks about money, culture and other issues surrounding Young Adulthood, but in each of the episodes that I’ve listened to, it talks about BGR (i.e., Boy Girl Relationships) to a certain extent. I’ve been getting pretty excited at the thought of being married someday. I started wondering whether it (alone) was spurring me on in my walk of sanctification (i.e., becoming more holy). I ask myself that a lot: Am I trying to lose weight to show the unbelieving world that I have self-control, or to attract a girl? Am I reading my Bible so that I can talk about it and have a leg up to catch a girl’s attention? This morning I was praying that God would lead me to my wife and I asked myself, no doubt, filled with the Spirit, What are you going to be praying for when it happens?

That hit me really hard. I prayed right away that God would give me a thirst for His glory. That I would desire to seek after Jesus more than anything else; more than marriage, more than Africa, more than perishing souls. I really don’t want to be an idolater. I want to find Jesus. (More on this later.)

And this brought me to prayer. I am convinced that there is so much that I can’t change: I can’t change the colour of the sky, I can’t make night day, I can’t force my father to see the evil of the world, confess his sins and receive Christ, I can’t raise up labourers for the harvest. The Sovereign Lord can!

The biggest thing that’s eating me right now is that I didn’t pray enough for where I was. This past year I’ve led the Young Adults group at my church, led the Engineering student MDA (i.e., a Movement Develop Area, or as Ottawa student, Mandy, rephrased it, an Area to Develop a Movement), led a DG (i.e., a Discipleship Group), which unfortunately was disjoint from leading the MDA, and coordinated Weekly Meeting. So many things to pray for, and yet so little prayer offered up. And when I did pray, it wasn’t specific, it was vague. I think that much of the time that I spent praying for Engineering students I was giving lip service, just wanting to get it over with.

So I think that I’ve learned a valuable lesson, that I really do have access to the supernatural resources of God through prayer. I need to pursue ways to make sure that I’m praying for those areas that I’m leading. If I’m not, then who is? I need to regularly cast the vision to myself of why I’m ministering where I’m ministering so that I care. I need to make sure that I’m not serving in so many areas that I get overwhelmed praying for all of them, all the time. I need to schedule prayer times and keep them. I need to gather people to pray with me. I need this to happen, for the sake of the salvation of my soul and the glory of God’s Name.

Labels: Abbreviations, Ministry, Miscellaneous, Prayer