Author Archives: Drew Haninger

Jesus Teaches Prayer in John 15

Jesus’ Instructions on Prayer in John 15

We come to the New Testament and we want to look at a verse in John 15.  John is one of four gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Chapter 15 is actually part of a sequence of chapters. Chapter 15 is a kind of a conclusion to chapter 13ff.  In chapter 13, Jesus was telling His disciples some troubling things.  He was telling them how He was going to die on the cross. He was talking about how one of His disciples was going to betray Him, and He was telling them how one of His disciples was going to deny Him three times.

Then you come to chapters 14, 15, 16, and 17.  In those four chapters, Jesus was trying to comfort His disciples.  Right in the middle of that, in chapter 15, Jesus was talking about abiding. He was talking about how we need to be like branches on a vine. He was the true vine. Some people say this describes kind of an organic relationship between Jesus and us, or between us and the Father.  Without getting into the rest of the context, there, John 15:7 says, “If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.” That seems kind of like a blank check where you can expect God to do anything you ask of Him. Some people look at that verse and they wonder why God doesn’t answer when they pray for something. There is a condition in this verse, though. It says, “If you abide in Me and My words aide in you”.  Being a computer programmer, I am familiar with logic. There is a “condition and statement” in that verse. It requires the first condition or statement to be true and it requires a second condition to be true before the result can be true.

The first condition, there, is, “If you abide in Me… “ Without getting into the context, there, one way to abide is to stay in the Lord, to rest in the Lord, or to remain in the Lord.  I would even say it means to do the things God wants you to do, to obey the Lord.  He says, “If you abide in Me”.  Then He says, “And if My words abide in you”.  This passage in the book of John says, “If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you”, you can ask whatever you will and I will do it. What words is He talking about when Jesus says, “And My words abide in you”? I believe He is specifically talking about the word He is speaking. I believe it also has to include the words of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation.

The video this text is taken from is on  Drew’s YouTube channel.  This portion is at YouTube.

God Cares What We Do

The Children of Israel Disobey God and Suffer Discipline

Now, we want to look at the example of the children of Israel in the Old Testament. God had delivered them from slavery in Egypt and brought them into their own land, the land of Canaan. God told them that as long as they served Him, the true God, and kept the sacrifices, and did the things He commanded them to do, He would preserve them in that land. The people obeyed for a while, but eventually they decided to do their own thing. They began to worship other gods and do things God wasn’t happy with.  God sent several prophets to them during that time. One of the big prophets was Jeremiah. Another one was Ezekiel. God kept speaking to His people and warning them. He basically said to them, “If you continue in this unrighteous way and continue to disobey Me, I will allow an enemy to come in and capture you.”  Sure enough, that is what happened.  God allowed the enemy to come in and devastate His people. Did God send this enemy or allow it? God had warned His people over and over again through prophet after prophet, “If you don’t obey Me, and if you don’t do the things I proscribed for you to do through Moses, then I will allow the enemy to come in, and that enemy will devastate you. “ The people absolutely ignored the prophets. They ignored Jeremiah.  They ignored Ezekiel and other prophets.  God allowed Assyria to come in, the Egyptians and eventually the Babylonians to come in.  They burned a lot of the cities and did a lot of damage, and took many Israelites captive back to Babylon.  Why did God allow that to happen? Number one, His people were not doing the things He told them to do. Just like Jonah got himself into a lot of trouble because he didn’t go where God told him to go, so the children of Israel had problems with their enemies because they did not obey the voice of the Lord and do the things that He wanted them to do.

But check the end of the Bible,  God does not give up on His people. He still wanted Israel to fulfill the original intention, purpose, and burden that He had for Israel. God eventually gets His way for all of us.

Jonah in the Bible

Jonah – When God speaks, He eventually gets His way.

Jonah was commissioned by God to go to Nineveh to preach and teach there, and to bring the people of that city to the Lord. We might tend to think Jonah should be able to go wherever he wanted to go, but that is not a principle taught in the Bible.  Jonah decided to go in a direction completely opposite the direction the Lord wanted him to go. Jonah did not want to go to Nineveh because he knew the people in that city were very cruel. Jonah feared that if they didn’t accept the message God had for them they might persecute or even kill him. We can understand why he wouldn’t want to go there!

We read that Jonah went out from the presence of the Lord. He turned his back on the Lord and went his own way!  Jonah took passage on a ship to go where he wanted to go.  Eventually they found themselves in the middle of a ferocious storm and the people on the boat learned that Jonah wasn’t doing what his God told him to do. Jonah knew this storm was a direct result his disobedience to the Lord, so he directed them to throw him overboard.  He saw that as the only chance of saving the ship and crew. What happened next seems rather strange to some people but it says God prepared a fish.  Some say it was a whale but the Bible doesn’t really say that.  It was a big fish.  This big fish swallowed Jonah, and he was in the belly of this fish for three days.  That is a brief summary of Jonah chapter one.

In chapter 2, we find Jonah in the belly of this big fish. He begins to pray and cry out to God?  Why?  He is in a big predicament and he doesn’t know if it will be life or death for him.  Jonah eventually prays and God delivers him. This fish spits him out on the shore.

In Jonah 3 it says that God spoke again to Jonah. In other words, God didn’t give-up on Jonah. He still wanted Jonah to fulfill the original intention, purpose or burden that God had for him. God again asked Jonah to go to Nineveh, the city He had originally commissioned him to go to. Eventually Jonah obeys, goes to that city and preaches, and as a result those people turned away from their unrighteousness and to God.

What is the simple principle we can learn from the story of Jonah?  When God speaks, eventually God gets His way.  If we don’t follow or go along with the Lord, He will sometimes allow something to happen that will bring God to our attention. In Jonah’s case, he spent three days in the belly of a big fish. There are two other examples in the Bible of people who went their own way and did their own thing and eventually got into trouble. Don’t forget, eventually God gets His way. 

The video this text is taken from is being uploaded to  Drew’s YouTube channel.

What About The Beginning and the End

beautiful sunset

As I was considering what we should talk about on today’s blog.  Should we talk about the beginning of the Bible, the book of Genesis, or should we talk about the end of the Bible, the book of Revelation?  These are two favorite subjects, at least for me. Genesis is a book of beginnings, and talks about creation. Because I am a computer engineer, I am interested in intricate things. I like to know about how things started. How did God create the heavens and the earth?  How did God put all the laws of the universe into motion? How do you interpret Genesis chapter one?  Some people look at it as discussingoriginal creation while others understand it to be describing a restoration of the original creation. Which is it? There are many reasons and evidences for both sides. Interestingly, something totally different from the book of Genesis or the book of Revelation came to mind as I considered before God what the burden for this program should be.  What came to mind was an Old Testament story about someone named Jonah. Jonah is an Old Testament book comprised of only four chapters, and it teaches us a very basic lesson.  

Moose Encounters

Mouse Encounter yesterday morning

I do a lot of hiking, walking and praying on various trails in the Spokane area.  This past  Saturday morning,  I encountered two moose about 5 miles apart.  So I think it is time to document all my moose encounters.  These cute “little” animals are almost twice the height of my car!

Here are my six moose encounters:

1.  When Olive Tree was in my home, (about 5 years ago) those working in the basement saw a mommy and baby moose in the back yard.  I tried to take a picture but it was too dark and my old camera was just not doing well.

2.  When I was hiking a 7 mile loop around a mountain,  a moose came between me and the trail back to the parking lot.  I was 20 feet from the moose and he was as startled as I was, but he did not charge.  I had to choose between walking back the other way (about 6 miles) or hoping the moose would vamoose.  After 3 frantic phone calls (including a wrong number to the park ranger), the moose wandered up the hill — a big sigh of relief!

3.  Once,  upon returning from a hike at dusk, I heard noises in the brush near my car.  I looked up and discovered I was 10 feet from a large moose.  Fortunately there was a fence separating me from the moose, so I did not have to test my tree-climbing abilities.

4.  While enjoying a hike with my grandchildren near the Little Spokane River, a moose was observed in the river.  We were about 40 feet from that impressive animal.

5 and 6. This Saturday morning I saw two moose that had just crossed the road in front of my car.  Both times I tried to quickly stop and grab my camera, but the moose kept moving. The picture above is the first moose I tried to photograph as he was quickly moving away.

Very Simple Prayer – as the Lord Taught Us

When we just do not know what to pray, here is a really simple one that Jesus taught us.  So short and simple.  This prayer takes care of our needs and God’s needs.  It actually starts with God’s needs, which is the Kingdom.

Our Father who is in heaven, may Your name be sanctified.  May Your Kingdom come.  May Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.  And supply us today what we need and forgive us our wrongs as we forgive the wrongs of others.  Do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

What is Prayer?

Prayer is just talking to God.  God is real, He exists and listens, we just need to start talking to Him.    Prayer does not need to be formal or in some special place or with some special people. Prayer is just talking to God in reality. So we don’t need to be phony or make-up something, just start saying what is on your heart as you think about God.  Prayer is just a dialog between us and God.  Prayer can be alone for with others.  Prayer can be when we are happy and when we are sad.  Prayer can be what we feel when we are very encouraged and when we are very depressed and low.   Prayer can be when we are a sinner (and we all are sinners) and when we feel we are a saint.  Prayer can be when we love God and when we hate God. Sometimes we are hurting because of something that happened, so tell that to God.  Sometimes after we pray we feel high and sometimes low.

Sometimes we have things we want God to fix or do.  Sometime He does them, other times it just does not happen.  We can in prayer talk to God about ourselves and talk about others.

In the Bible there are many sample prayers. These Bible prayers are great examples of words if we need them, but still the best is what just comes from our heart as we think about God.

Three quick tips to help your prayer:
1. To know Jesus Christ as savior makes a big difference in prayer results
2. To know the Bible also helps our prayer
3. To obey the Lord also helps our prayer

So try some prayers, just talk to God what ever words come to you as you consider God.

God Created

Why is the Bible so simple. It just acknowledges God. Then it says God created the heavens and earth.  There is just no opinion expressed in this simple statement in the first book of the Bible, Genesis. Just the facts of the way it is in the universe.

Creation shows God’s power and ability.  It is one thing to intelligently design something like a computer system, a communication system, or a transportation vehicle.  It is another to actually build it.  What if we had no raw materials and needed to design and build from nothing.

God created the universe from nothing. He is God and has this ability. So He is the source of all matter and energy.  He doesn’t just modify pre-existing matter but calls matter into being out of nothing.