Seeing Jesus with Paul Miller

In this episode, Paul Miller, Jon Hori, Bob Allums and Liz Voboril continue the A Praying Church series with "Seeing the Saints." "Historians call the 1500s the century of the Bible. And part of that love for scripture meant moving the sermon to the center of the worship service on Sunday morning and communion became quarterly. There were many good parts to that, but practically, someone had to give the sermon and that was the preacher. That created the problem that has bedeviled the protestant church for 500 years: the celebrity preacher." "The Apostle Paul views the saints kind of like getting an old antique. You can see the beauty in it. It needs to be cleaned and polished, but you can see that glow there." "This saints category is an incredibly encouraging way of looking at yourself and other people – it’s so freeing. I think what the gospel does for our heart, the saints category does for your ministry and your relationships. You can begin to see people through a resurrection lens because you are resurrected. You're on a hunt for resurrection in their hearts because you know that they have experienced that same thing. It transforms the whole way you look at the church, the way you look at the body of Christ, how you pray, when you pray. In some ways, it’s the final piece that brings a praying church together."

In this episode, Paul Miller, Jon Hori, Bob Allums and Liz Voboril continue the A Praying Church series, looking at the nature of the church and how the frontlines might not be where we think they are.  "It's easy to look out at the pews and see consumers. Why consumers? Because they're writing emails complaining about this and that. It's easy to be caught up in people's own narratives but that misses that Pauline lens of resurrection. These people have not only been made righteous in Christ but there's a real righteousness flowing out of them and that Jesus wants to come out of them. We have to shift from seeing them as consumers to seeing them as saints, and equipping them, telling them what they are, encouraging them, and having people share their frontline stories." "Prayer is not a gift, anymore than breathing is a gift. You can live without your right hand, but you can't live without breathing. Prayer is fundamental to the life of the church." "If you google 'armor of God Ephesians 6 image' you'll get a picture of a solitary soldier. But that's not what Paul is talking about. It's very clear the whole passage is plural -- all the plurals are hidden because we don't pick them up in English... We tend to see the armor of God almost through a pietistic lens where it's sort of the individual person trying to get through the day, but Paul has in mind the entire church working together in this battle against evil."

The podcast explores the dangers of weird and inauthentic prayers, emphasizing the importance of being genuine and humble in prayer. They discuss funny prayer scenes in movies and the power of real praying. They also highlight the significance of authentic praying for children.

Explore the challenges of praying with your spouse and the importance of adapting to their style. Learn how Jesus started with a simple 22-second prayer. Discover the impact of guy culture on small community prayers and the role of vulnerability in enhancing relationships.

We resume our A Praying Church series with the first of two episodes on "Pray Continually" with Paul Miller,  Jon Hori, Bob Allums and Liz Voboril. "Prayer and faith go hand-in-hand. Prayer is, in effect, a faith muscle. You don’t go to the gym and try to lift 200 lbs if you’ve never been there before. The muscle has to grow. It takes time. You start with your little garden and add more seeds to it." "You have to begin seeing God doing things. As you see God answer your prayers, it builds your faith more. Our hearts are not naturally believing, and our world is filled with unbelief." "Paul uses the phrase 'constant in prayer,' in other words 'you be constant in prayer.' With the lack of the plural 'you all' in English, it's easy to miss that he's saying 'Y'all be constant in prayer", or the Philly version, 'Yous guys be constant in prayer.' It is a call for the entire community to be constant in prayer."  

To celebrate the release of the new Person of Jesus Study -- Student Edition, we invited asked John Miller, Paul's oldest son, to join us for a conversation about how the study got it's start when John was a senior in High School.  "I did this sabbatical on the person of Jesus where I just studied the gospels…and one of the things that struck me was how alive Jesus was when you actually paid attention to him as a person. I thought 'if our teenagers could get a hold of this, it would create a a reality in their minds that you couldn't take away.'" "I wanted to imprint John with the person of Jesus." "I didn't realize that over all these different weeks, I had gotten to know Jesus. Watching his death was really hard...[After that lesson], I had a week where my friend had died and it was weird just walking around. The only thing I could get myself to understand about what had happened was that Jesus, who was my Lord and savior, whom I'd already given my life to, had now become my friend, and my friend had died. I knew that Jesus was alive. I knew he conquered the grave, but in that moment for me, my friend was dead."

To celebrate the release of the revised The Person of Jesus, Unit 2: Honesty study, we invited Timo Strawbridge, Director of Spiritual Life at Trinity Presbyterian Church in Lakeland, FL, to join Paul and Liz for a conversation on how Jesus' honesty helps us.  "One of the things that just shocked me about Jesus was his honesty. I was trying to read the gospels and say okay if this guy were at my house, what would I notice about him. He said things and talked like he didn't care what people thought about him!" "The goal of Jesus’ honesty is not to make his life less painful because he has less weird or obnoxious people in it – his goal is to draw people into the life of his Father." "You really need to combine compassion and honesty. In a difficult relationship, it's a compassionate act to invite honesty or to hold off on your honesty to let people speak into your life. Jesus constantly begins with understanding, so there's a kind of a general order there: begin with compassion and let that shape your honesty. Honesty's a little bit like pepper or hot salsa – a little goes a long way!"  

We continue our A Praying Church series with the 2nd part of our conversation on "Pray Big".  "My dad, Jack Miller, gave me one of the books that’s had a big influence on my prayer life. It was a book about the story of the life of James O. Fraser, a missionary to the Lisu people of China called Behind the Ranges." "Don't mix up confidence with faith — that is deadly." "You can't ‘overstretch’ faith. So, if you go too big then it's overstretched…it's not real. The other problem which I think is much more of a problem in American circles is to not exercise faith, to think that faith just drops on you…’"

Paul is back from a podcast break and we're resuming our A Praying Church series with a two-part conversation on "Pray Big".  "The idea of praying big is that there's a tendency in prayer meetings or even in your own prayer life to focus on immediate needs, moving from Aunt Edna's hip to Uncle Ira's arthritis back again to cousin Eddie's whatever! I'm not belittling the importance of those prayers, but to pray only those would be like getting stuck in the weeds." "Sometimes you need to look at the forest instead of one particular tree." "The part of the Lord's prayer that fits this is the opening petition: “Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” That prayer is mammoth! That is the Jesus version of ‘go big or go home.’"

In this episode, we share the 2nd half of a gem from the seeJesus archives -- it's a talk Paul Miller gave at the Bethlehem Pre-Conference in February 2020 introducing the J-Curve. The first half can be found one episode back. "One of the beautiful things about looking at the J-Curve is that it stabilizes your emotions and it gives shape to them. It's one of the characters of the modern world that people embrace their emotions and go into free fall..." "The cross is not a place for self-improvement—it’s a place for dying" "We have this sort of epicurean software that we bring to the gospel. Dying and rising with Christ gives me a whole narrative that liberates my emotions but frees me from the tyranny of them at the same time, so I don't have to be caught— not only by the spirit of my age, but I don't have to be trapped by my own spirit. I can be real; I'm free to lament, and I'm free to sing in prison like Paul."