A few thoughts from Living Prayer

I just started reading Dennis Fuqua’s new book Living Prayer yesterday.  I first met Dennis about 10 years ago when he came to meet with the leadership team of the Chicago Pastor’s Prayer Summit.  Since then we have regularly run into one another at either Prayer Summit, Mission America or City Impact Roundtable events.  I have great respect for Dennis and was looking forward to reading his book.  About 70 pages in I have decided to give away 10 copies of his book.  I am going to give away 3 today as a Christmas eve present for everyone and then another 7 when I officially review the book.

I am flying home today from visiting family and the light at my seat doesn’t work so I can’t read the book.  So I figured I would at least write about it.  One section that really struck me was about the first line of the Lord’s Prayer “Hollowed (Holy) be your name”.  Dennis cites the real definition of profanity in scripture, not as four letter words, but as lessing the name of the Lord by improper action or inaction.  When the church (or we as Christians) is less than what God wants for us to be, we are actually profaning his name.  In Dennis’ words:

Ezekiel 36:16-23 describes how God’s people make His name “profane.” They did it not by “swearing”…Rather, it was by the way God’s people acted. The people of Israel belonged to the Lord, but their actions weren’t consistent with that. They acted as badly as or even worse than those who didn’t claim to be God’s followers. They acted as though God wasn’t real.

I am starting to land so leave a comment below. The first three I will send copy of Dennis Fuqua’s new book.