The Prayer Warrior's Way Order Printed Copy

Author: Cindy Trimm
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Exceptional piece. Highly recommended!

- abba solomon (2 months ago)

About the Book

"The Prayer Warrior's Way" by Cindy Trimm is a guide to developing a powerful and effective prayer life. Trimm provides practical strategies and insights for engaging in spiritual warfare, interceding for others, and deepening your relationship with God through prayer. She emphasizes the importance of aligning your prayers with God's will and standing firm in faith. Through engaging stories and practical advice, Trimm shows readers how to become strong and effective prayer warriors in their own lives.

Susannah Wesley

If a passing stranger walking through the rural village of Epworth, England, on any given day between 1700 and 1720 had peered through the window of the home of the rector of the local Anglican church, he might have caught sight of something quite strange. Depending on the time of day, this observer might have seen a woman sitting in a chair with her kitchen apron pulled up over her head while ten children read, studied, or played all around her. Two of those ten children would have been little boys — John and Charles — who would grow up to shape the course of Christian history and thus change the world. The woman under the apron would have been Susanna Wesley, who assumed this odd posture for two hours almost every day. In a moment you will understand why. Susanna understood the dynamics of large families. Born the twenty-fifth of twenty-five children in 1669, Susanna Annesley grew up the daughter of a prominent, highly educated minister in cosmopolitan London. She had little formal education, but growing up in an academic household with so many older siblings left her well-read and well-rounded intellectually. She met Samuel Wesley, an aspiring Anglican minister, and married him in 1688, when she was nineteen years old. Susanna’s remaining fifty-three years were far from easy ones. They were characterized by loss, hardship, and struggle. Yet she became a woman of immense legacy, largely through the dual virtues of organization and prayer. Susanna delivered nineteen children, but nine — including two sets of twins — died in infancy. Another was accidentally smothered in the night by a nurse as Susanna recovered from labor and delivery. Her husband, Samuel, did not succeed in his thirty-nine-year assignment as rector of the church at Epworth. An intellectual academic, he simply did not understand or identify with the rural villagers in his parish. Nor did they care for him. When he involved himself from the pulpit in a highly divisive political matter inflaming the entire nation in that era, he earned the hatred of a vast segment of the populace. On two occasions the Wesleys’ parsonage burned down, most likely because of arson on the part of Epworth’s embittered parishioners. Susanna and the children were seldom spared harassment and insults. Samuel was not good with money, and he once spent several months in debtors’ prison. The parsonage came with a small farm, but Samuel was uninterested in and ill-suited for farm work, so this too was left for Susanna to manage. This was in addition to the huge task of homeschooling all of the children, with their varying ages and gifts. For decades, Samuel expended all of his energies and most of the family’s meager wealth working on an exegetical treatise on the book of Job. The sad irony is that while he was away for long periods of time studying and writing about Job’s intense sufferings, his living, breathing wife was enduring real pain and hardship, largely on her own. Susanna’s household organizational skills are the stuff of legend. She knew from personal experience that quality one-on-one time with a parent is hard to come by in a family with many children, yet powerfully important. So she set a rotating schedule through which each of her children spent an hour with her alone before bedtime on a designated night each week. What is more, she somehow found a way to manage the household and give her large brood of children a world-class education that included both classical and biblical learning. Her girls got the same rigorous education as did her boys, something virtually unheard of in that day. Traditionally, girls of that place and time were taught “feminine” skills such as needlework and music before undertaking the most basic education, such as learning to read. Susanna firmly believed this was wrong-headed. Her girls were taught the same curriculum as her boys. Among the “bylaws” by which she ran her home school was this: “8. That no girl be taught to work till she can read very well; and then that she be kept to her work with the same application, and for the same time, that she was held to in reading. This rule also is much to be observed; for the putting of children to learn sewing before they can read perfectly, is the very reason why so few women can read fit to be heard, and never to be well understood.”1 School hours were from 9:00 a.m. to noon and then 2:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m., six days a week. All but the smallest children completed their assigned chores promptly before the start of the school day. As in many one-room schoolhouses in generations past, older children helped teach the younger. No Excuse for Not Praying! Susanna took her relationship to God as seriously as she did her duties as a wife and mother. Early in her life, she vowed that she would never spend more time in leisure entertainment than she did in prayer and Bible study. Even amid the most complex and busy years of her life as a mother, she still scheduled two hours each day for fellowship with God and time in His Word, and she adhered to that schedule faithfully. The challenge was finding a place of privacy in a house filled to overflowing with children. Mother Wesley’s solution to this was to bring her Bible to her favorite chair and throw her long apron up over her head, forming a sort of tent. This became something akin to the “tent of meeting,” the tabernacle in the days of Moses in the Old Testament. Every person in the household, from the smallest toddler to the oldest domestic helpers, knew well to respect this signal. When Susanna was under the apron, she was with God and was not to be disturbed except in the case of the direst emergency. There in the privacy of her little tent, she interceded for her husband and children and plumbed the deep mysteries of God in the Scriptures. This holy discipline equipped her with a thorough and profound knowledge of the Bible. Prayer Leads to Teaching When husband Samuel was away, as was often the case, a substitute minister brought the Sunday morning sermon at the church. Susanna found these messages uninspiring and lacking in spiritual meat. She had a good-sized congregation of her own at home, so she began teaching them the Bible in her kitchen on Sunday afternoons. Soon neighbors began asking if they could attend. Word circulated and others from the area began asking permission to attend as well. So thorough was Susanna’s knowledge of the Bible, and so gifted was she at communicating its truths, that on any given Sunday after church, Susanna would have as many as two hundred people in attendance at her informal family Bible study, which started in her home but soon moved to a larger venue. Susanna passed away in 1742 at the age of seventy-three, living long enough to see her sons John and Charles become world-renowned leaders of the global Christian movement. This is her legacy, forged in large part in those diligent hours of intercession under that makeshift apron tent. The Lasting Legacy of Prayer John Wesley is estimated to have preached to nearly a million people in his long, fruitful life. His powerful, evangelistic services were frequently held in the open air to accommodate audiences in the tens of thousands. Traveling on horseback, he regularly preached three or more times a day, often beginning before daybreak. Even at the age of seventy he preached, without the assistance of modern amplification, to an estimated throng of thirty-two thousand people. It is hard to overstate John Wesley’s theological impact. He remains the dominant theological influence on Methodists and Methodist-heritage groups the world over, including the United Methodist Church, the Methodist Church of Great Britain, and the African Methodist Episcopal Church, all of which played a pivotal role in the abolitionist movement of the nineteenth century. Wesleyan theology also formed the foundation for the holiness movement in the United States, which includes denominations like the Wesleyan Church, the Free Methodist Church, the Church of the Nazarene, the Christian and Missionary Alliance, the Church of God (Anderson, Indiana), and other groups which compose the colorful mosaic of Pentecostalism and the charismatic movement in North America. As prolific a writer as he was busy as a preacher, John Wesley has been called the Father of the Religious Paperback. His published sermons, tracts, pamphlets, and booklets number roughly five thousand items. In addition to theology, Wesley wrote about music, marriage, medicine, science, abolitionism, and current events. Although John married, he and his wife, Mary, had no children. Because of his giving nature toward the poor, the oppressed, and the unevangelized, he left little of material wealth behind when he died in 1791 at the age of eighty-seven. One biographer said John Wesley “was carried to his grave by six poor men ‘leaving behind him nothing but a good library of books, a well-worn clergyman’s gown… and — the Methodist Church.’”2 The same writer observed that John’s impact was so profound that he in effect “supplied a new starting-point to modern religious history.”3 John’s younger brother Charles was very much a partner in and vital contributor to these accomplishments. A brilliant musician and lyricist, he wrote more than 6,600 hymns, many of which are still in hymnals the world over today. Charles and his wife, Sarah, had three children who survived infancy, including two boys, Samuel and Charles Jr., who were musical prodigies. Charles Jr. grew up to serve as the personal organist of the English royal family. His brother, Samuel Sebastian Wesley, became one of the most accomplished British composers of the nineteenth century. A contemporary of Mozart, Samuel is sometimes called “The English Mozart.”4 John and Charles Wesley were passionate lovers of God and powerful persuaders of people. As a result, the brothers were viewed by many of their contemporaries as religious fanatics. History has been far kinder in its verdict. It views them as world changers. And every one of the changes they wrought is part of the legacy of Susanna Wesley. In his 1864 biography, John Kirk wrote of Susanna, “Her name has been everywhere received with respect; and by a large and influential Christian Community it has been cherished with strongest affection. Her success in the education of her children has been the theme of universal admiration; and no one has yet ventured to hazard even a conjecture as to how much the cause of religion and the well-being of the human race are indebted to her steady piety and extraordinary talents.”5 We hope that as you read [the story of] Susanna Wesley, you’ll grab on to the power of them. For Susanna Wesley, there was no amount of distraction that could keep her from prayer and the Bible. That kind of life, deeply rooted, produced great fruit, as evidenced not only by the people who came to hear her teach but also by the children she influenced. The great truth in her story is how prayer does not occupy the stage of activity. Its power is in the quiet trust of gentle souls who are willing to pull away from the everyday to commune with God. John Wesley, The Heart of Wesley’s Journal, ed. Ed Hughes and Hugh Price (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2008), 127. William Henry Fitchett, Wesley and His Century: A Study in Spiritual Forces (London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1906), 1. Ibid. Peter Matthews, Who’s Buried Where in London (London:  Bloomsbury, 2017), 37. John Kirk, The Mother of the Wesleys: A Biography (Ambler, MA:  Tresidder, 1864), vii. Excerpted with permission from Only One Life by Jackie Green and Lauren Green McAfee, copyright Jackie Green, Lauren Green McAfee, Bill High.

the mouth of a godly man

What if men in the church are more immature and less equipped because we’ve been expecting too little of them? What if we have simply failed to call them to more than sexual purity online and basic spiritual disciplines? I want to be a part of raising up men who, instead of merely avoiding this or that sin, become a force for good — better, a force for God . And I want to be that kind of man, the kind of man my son should imitate. When the apostle Paul wrote to a younger man, casting vision for what he might become in Christ, he charged him, “Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity” (1 Timothy 4:12). In a previous article, I began recovering this simple but challenging framework as a paradigm for becoming a man of God. In this article, I want to narrow in on speech . What does it mean, more practically, to set an example in what a man says (or doesn’t say)? What about our words sets us apart from other men? Words really do matter. Jesus himself says, “I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak, for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned” (Matthew 12:36–37). Every careless word . Men of God learn to trade careless words for thoughtful ones. While many today speak, text, and tweet whatever they think or feel without a second thought, these men weigh the serious weight of what they say. They speak as if God is listening, because he is. And they know that what they say reveals who they are (Luke 6:45). They tremble over the consequences of sentences. They work to make their words a deeper and fuller well of grace. Seven Lessons for What We Say Wanting to set an example with our speech, what kind of example should we set? What does a man of God sound like in the wild? The letters of Paul say a great deal about what we say, distilled below into seven lessons (a list that is by no means comprehensive). Before we get into the seven, though, one verse in particular might serve as a worthy banner over the rest: Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person. (Colossians 4:6) If we want to set a good example in our speech, we should strive for our words to be a grace to others. Do our words consistently and effectively minister the grace of God to those who hear? Do they lead them to see and savor more of God? “Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths,” Paul says elsewhere, “but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear ” (Ephesians 4:29). To fill out that graciousness, though, Paul gives us a number of specific principles for guarding our mouths and serving others in all we say. 1. Tell the truth about God. The first and most important lesson for our speech, especially in the context of Paul’s two letters to Timothy, is that we speak what is true about God and his word. The clear and immediate context of 1 Timothy 4:12 is teaching : Command and teach these things . Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity. Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching . (1 Timothy 4:11–13; see also Titus 2:7) Paul was writing to a young pastor, but this is not a word only for pastors (or aspiring pastors). Every man of God should aspire to know and teach what is true about God. What you believe and say about God is one of the most important things about you. Men who speak well in the world are men who first listen well to God in his word. “Men who speak well in the world are men who first listen well to God in his word.” Strive to know him as thoroughly and deeply as you can — to meditate on his law day and night (Psalm 1:1–2) — and to bear a faithful witness to others of who he really is. Day after day, arm yourself with “the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” (Ephesians 6:17). Prepare yourself to “make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you” (1 Peter 3:15). And then boldly tell others what God has revealed to you. 2. Tell the truth about everything. Telling the truth about God, however, ultimately means telling the truth about everything . Christian men are honest men — men of unquestionable integrity. That emphatically does not mean they are always right, but they are manifestly committed to being true . Having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. (Ephesians 4:25; see also Colossians 3:9) Men of God do not fabricate or repeat lies, and they do not hide or obscure the truth. They take responsibility and accept the consequences, even when it costs them much. And being honest will cost us much. Typically, we lie to protect or serve ourselves (even if it’s serving ourselves by making someone else happy). Godly men know that honesty, however painful and costly in the moment, honors Christ and loves others. They know that peace and pleasure built on deceit are really treachery. They also know, and have tasted personally, the durable peace and pleasure of Spirit-filled integrity. 3. Build others up with your words. One thread in Paul’s letters proves to be an especially useful test for our speech: Do I use my words to build others up? The apostle writes, Speaking the truth in love , we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love . (Ephesians 4:15–16; see also 4:12) As you think about your conversations over the last week, do you see a pattern of building other believers up? Consider not just the absence of tearing others down — anger, cynicism, gossip, impatience, slander, and so on — but the presence of encouragement. And not just nice compliments, but real encouragement — words that build others’ faith and joy in God (Philippians 1:25). Building is hard work, and so building language is not always comfortable or easy to hear, but it is always constructive and hopeful. So, “strive to excel in building up the church” (1 Corinthians 14:12), especially in what you say. 4. Avoid all foolishness and filthiness. If we do not make a habit of building others up with our words, we may fall into tearing them down — discouraging, wounding, even corrupting them. Again, Ephesians 4:29: “ Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths , but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.” Some words build up, and others corrupt. So what kind of language corrupts? Paul gives the same charge in greater detail in Colossians 3:8: “Now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth.” And in Ephesians 5:4: “Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place.” Social media is overrun — like that overgrown, weed-infested yard down the street — with these word sins. If we live online long enough, our senses will be dulled and corruption will begin to feel normal, acceptable, even justified. It is not normal, and it does not please God. Setting a godly example in speech often begins with refusing to indulge these temptations — to cut out words that gratify our flesh at the expense of someone else. 5. Be unusually thankful. Setting an example begins with emptying our speech of corruption, and the best way to force corruption out is to fill our speech with something else. “Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving ” (Ephesians 5:4). Do you want your words to radiate grace? Thank God often, and out loud, for everything. Make sure that everyone in your life knows that everything you have is a gift of God (James 1:17). Strive to be unusually, stubbornly, even a little socially awkwardly thankful (Colossians 2:7). How often do you meet someone who sounds like this? “Be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Ephesians 5:18–20). How often have you tried to discipline your own mouth into grace-giving, joy-stirring streams like these? How much more often, like me, have you fallen out of thanksgiving into grumbling? “Sometimes faithfulness sounds like silence.” “Do all things without grumbling or disputing,” Paul says elsewhere, “that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world ” (Philippians 2:14–15). This light shines in what we say (or don’t). Ask God to make you radiantly thankful. 6. Correct with gentleness. Men of God committed to building others up do not always affirm and applaud. They know that building requires vigilance and regular correction, that mistakes along the way can have devastating consequences later on. So, as we build the church, we can’t afford to allow sins, errors, and blind spots to go unchecked and unconfronted. To honor God in our speech, men of God must correct one another. And it is just as important how we correct one another. “Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness ” (Galatians 6:1). “The Lord’s servant . . . [corrects] his opponents with gentleness ” (2 Timothy 2:24–25). He could use his strength, like many other men, to be forceful, harsh, even brutal, but he chooses, instead, to be gentle — even when he has been sinned against. Instead of using his strength to overpower others, he uses his strength to restrain himself in love. He still confronts sin, but he does so with surprising patience and kindness. He knows that “a gentle tongue is a tree of life” (Proverbs 15:4). Part of pursuing godliness in speech and correcting with gentleness is being committed to making peace. “I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment” (1 Corinthians 1:10; see also Titus 3:2). “Blessed are the peacemakers,” Jesus promises, “for they shall be called sons of God” (Matthew 5:9). In the midst of correction and conflict, even when we have to say a hard word, we should be fighting for peace — not a cheap or superficial peace, but a deep, healthy, enduring peace in the Lord. 7. Leave behind boasting in self. Another dominant thread in the apostle’s letters seems to be all the more relevant today: Those captured by grace leave behind all boasting in self. “God chose what is low and despised in the world . . . so that no human being might boast in the presence of God” (1 Corinthians 1:28–29). Men of God are known for building others up, and for being surprisingly quiet about their own abilities, achievements, and ministry. Good men don’t go around reminding people of how good they are. They live by the proverb, “Let another praise you, and not your own mouth” (Proverbs 27:2). Again, in our day, social media factors in significantly here. A social media profile gives us an opportunity to present ourselves however we want. And painfully few of us, when given the choice, show the world who we really are. We choose to highlight what we think makes us look good. We selectively post and comment based on what reflects well on us. In that way, social media easily becomes an education in self-boasting. We learn, through trial and error (and lots and lots of scrolling), what will win affirmation ( like ) and admiration ( follow ). “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord” (1 Corinthians 1:31; 2 Corinthians 10:17). Humble, faithful, joy-filled speech boasts less and less in self and more and more in God. Lord, Guard Our Mouths One lesson weaves in and out of the points above that’s worth calling out on its own. Godly men not only know what to say at certain times and in certain situations, but they also know when to say less, or nothing at all. Sometimes faithfulness sounds like silence. As Paul’s fellow apostle James writes, “Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak , slow to anger” (James 1:19). Men who speak well are consistently slow to speak, especially in situations where most people would rush to say something. What makes a wise man slow to speak? He knows the amazing power of his words, for better or for worse. “How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire! And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness” (James 3:5–6). The wise feel the palpable danger in what they might say. They know how subtly sin creeps in and sets everything (and everyone) on fire. “When words are many, transgression is not lacking, but whoever restrains his lips is prudent” (Proverbs 10:19). Prudence makes friends with self-control, patience, and wise silence. Slowness to speak, however, does not make our speech godly. Yes, we resist saying too much too soon, but we also fill our mouths with words of grace — with honesty, with encouragement, with thankfulness, with whatever will build others up. We set a positive, proactive, gracious example, always asking God to watch over all we say. Set a guard, O Lord, over my mouth; keep watch over the door of my lips! (Psalm 141:3)