#51 of Top 100 Books Read The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis

Book Five in the Chronicles of Narnia

There are so many majestic scenes in this book that will stay with you for the rest of your life. They speak to God’s unending commitment to our cleansing and redemption.

“Then the lion said — but I don’t know if it spoke — You will have to let me undress you. I was afraid of his claws, I can tell you, but I was pretty nearly desperate now. So I just lay flat down on my back to let him do it.

“The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I’ve ever felt. The only thing that made me able to bear it was just the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off. You know — if you’ve ever picked the scab of a sore place. It hurts like billy-oh but it is such fun to see it coming away.”

“I know exactly what you mean,” said Edmund.

“Well, he peeled the beastly stuff right off – just as I thought I’d done it myself the other three times, only they hadn’t hurt – and there it was lying on the grass, only ever so much thicker, and darker, and more knobbly-looking than the others had been. And there was I smooth and soft as a peeled switch and smaller than I had been. Then he caught hold of me – I didn’t like that much for I was very tender underneath now that I’d no skin on — and threw me into the water. It smarted like anything but only for a moment. After that it became perfectly delicious and as soon as I started swimming and splashing I found that all the pain had gone from my arm. And then I saw why. I’d turned into a boy again. . . .”

Miss anything, but don’t miss My voice

Miss anything, but don’t miss My voice

At the beginning of the year, our thoughts gravitate to the newness of the date, the crisp wind blowing in our faces when we go outdoors (well at least in Oklahoma), and the many resolutions that most of us pledge. 
We must be careful to not focus on the retooling of ourselves, as if somehow we can recreate this “old person” into the image of Jesus. How many times have you decided to be more spiritual and read the Bible through in a year? And, speaking of the image of Jesus, let me pose a pointed question. When words come out of your mouth, do they distinctly and self-forgetfully point just to Jesus?
He spoke: 
You need change. Everything must be brought to Me and laid at My feet; it all rests on Me. Any newness in your life can only come from leaning into Me. 
Don’t be afraid. The Holy Spirit is flowing through your soul and sweeping away any bitter memories of the past. 
Be encouraged; I love you, and the door is always open. There is one requirement: trust Me like a child. I mean, never question Me. Don’t’ ask why. Ask, “What are you teaching me, Holy Spirit?” 
Be teachable. Be trainable. 
Miss anything else, but don’t miss My voice.  

“But when the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all truth. For He will not speak on His own authority. But He will speak whatever He hears, and He will tell you things that are to come” (John 16:13).
“No one sews a piece of new cloth on an old garment, or else the new piece that covered it tears away from the old, and the tear is made worse. And no one pours new wine into old wineskins, or else the new wine bursts the wineskins, and the wine is spilled, and the wineskins will be marred. But new wine must be poured into new wineskins” (Mark 2:21-22).

Seven days until Lent begins Take the Forty-Day Word Fast February 26-April 11

Take The Forty-Day Word Fast this year for Lent. 
“Fast hurting words and say kind words instead.” Pope St. Francis for Lent

Each year since I published this first book, The Forty-Day Word Fast, momentum has built for people to fast hurting words for Lent. Many, many individuals, Bible study groups, Sunday School classes and others are using The Forty-Day Word Fast for Lent. 

Purchase on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, most Christian Bookstores, or at timcameronprayer.com

What is Lent?

Lent is the six weeks leading up to Easter. It’s one of the most critical times of the year for many Christians around the world, particularly those within the Anglican, Catholic, and Orthodox traditions, held at a similar level of importance to Advent – the build-up to Christmas.
While Advent is a celebration and a time of great anticipation, Lent is a time of solemn observance and preparation for the celebration of the death and resurrection of Jesus at Easter. From its start on Ash Wednesday until its conclusion on Easter Sunday, Lent has been a traditional time for fasting or giving something up or abstinence. Just as we carefully prepare for events in our personal lives, like a wedding or birthday, or commencement, Lent invites us to make our minds and hearts ready for remembering Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection.


#52 of top 100 Books Read The Three Battlegrounds by Frances Frangipane

#52 of top 100 Books read.
The Three Battlegrounds by Francis Frangipane

Who is Francis Frangipane?
Francis Frangipane is a Christian evangelical minister and author. He is the founding pastor of River of Life Ministries in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, United States. In 2002, he also launched an international, online school called In Christ’s Image Training (ICIT). This training lays a foundation of truth based on four principal themes: Christlikeness, humility, prayer and unity. ICIT has students in over one hundred fifteen nations and territories and in all 50 U.S states.

Additionally, over the past decades, Frangipane has served on a number of other ministry boards. In his more simplified life now, Frangipane is devoting himself to prayer and the ministry of God’s word.

Francis Frangipane has an active partnership with the Mission America Coalition, consisting of leaders from 81 denominations and over 400 ministries and networks. He is also a welcomed teacher in various Charismatic and Evangelical church settings, in both the black and white communities. He is a prolific author and writer. His books, The Place of Immunity, The Divine Antidote, and The Power of Covenant Prayer, are classics in spiritual writings.

Pulling Down Strongholds

Pulling Down Strongholds

I encourage each of you to begin the battle for your city by pulling down the strongholds in your home. Bring your family into prayer and, through prayer, bring healing and order. If you fail in this preparation, the enemy will always have open doors to counterattack and undermine your credibility. (See 1 Timothy 3:5.)

It is important to note that pulling down a stronghold is only half the battle—on that very site we must now build an altar to the Lord. For example, if the stronghold was fear, it must be replaced with an altar of faith. If bitterness existed, love must take its place.

Francis Frangipane

The one Teacher–and the secret to prayer

Alone with God

“But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thy hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly” (Matthew 6:6).

After Jesus had called his first disciples, He gave them their first public teaching in the Sermon on the Mount. It is Christ who teaches us to pray. The first thing the Lord teaches His disciples is that they must have a secret place for prayer. Everyone must have some solitary spot where he can be alone with his God. Every teacher must have a schoolroom. We have learned to know and accept Jesus as our only Teacher in the school of prayer. He has already taught us at Samaria that worship is no longer confined to specific times and places. Worship – true, spiritual worship – is a thing of spirit and the life. A man’s whole life must be worship in spirit and truth. A teacher always wants his schoolroom to be bright, attractive, and filled with the light and air of heaven. He wants it to be a place where his pupils long to come and love to stay. In His first words on prayer in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus seeks to set the inner chamber before us in its most attractive light. The first thing in closet – prayer is to meet the Father.

First, “Pray to thy Father which is in secret.”

The secrecy of the inner chamber and the closed door, the entire separation from everything around us, is an image of the inner spiritual sanctuary, the secret of God’s tabernacle. It is there within the veil that our spirit truly comes into contact with the Invisible One. Thus we are taught at the very beginning of our search for the secret of effective prayer to remember that it is in the inner chamber, where we are alone with the Father, that we learn to pray properly. The Father is in secret.

Lord, Teach Us to Pray

Lord, teach us to pray

or The Only Teacher

And it came to pass, as He was praying in a certain

place, that when He ceased, one of His disciples

said to Him, Lord, teach us to pray.

—Luke 11:1

The disciples had been with Christ, and seen Him pray.  They had learnt to understand something of the connection between His wondrous life in public, and His secret life of prayer.  They had learnt to believe in Him as a Master in the art of prayer—none could pray like Him.  And so they came to Him with the request, ‘Lord, teach us to pray.’

As we grow in the Christian life, the thought and the faith of the Beloved Master in His never-failing intercession becomes ever more precious, and the hope of being Like Christ in His intercession gains an attractiveness before unknown.

“Lord, teach us to pray.’  Yes, to pray.  This is what we need to be taught.  Though in its beginnings prayer is so simple that the feeblest child can pray, yet it is at the same time the highest and holiest work to which man can rise.  It is fellowship with the Unseen and Most Holy One.  True prayer, that takes hold of God’s strength that availeth much, to which the gates of heaven are really opened wide-=-who would not cry, Oh for some one to teach me thus to pray?

Jesus has opened a school, in which He trains His redeemed ones, who specially desire it, to have power in prayer.  Shall we not enter it with the petition, Lord! it is just this we need to be taught! O teach us to pray.

Lord, teach us to pray.  None can teach like Jesus, none but Jesus; therefore we call on Him, ‘Lord, teach us to pray.’  A pupil needs a teacher, who knows his work, who has the gift of teaching, who in patience and love will descend to the pupil’s needs.  Blessed be God!  Jesus is al this and much more.  He knows what prayer is.  In Heaven it is still His beloved work.  Jesus never taught His disciples how to preach, only how to pray.  He did not speak much of what was needed to preach well, but much of praying well.  To know how to speak to God is more than knowing how to speak to man.  Not power with men, bout power with God is the first thing.  Jesus loves to teach us how to pray.

Lord Jesus! I ask Thee this day to enroll my name among those who confess that they know not how to pray as they ought, and specially ask Thee for a course of teaching in prayer.  Lord! teach me to tarry with Thee in the school, and give Thee time to train me.  May a deep sense of my ignorance, of the wonderful privilege and power of prayer, of the need of the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of prayer, lead me to cast away my thoughts of what I think I know, and make me kneel before Thee in true teachableness and poverty of spirit.

And fill me, Lord, with the confidence that with such a teacher as Thou art I shall learn to pray.  In the assurance that I have as my teacher, Jesus, who is ever praying to the Father, and by His prayer rules the destinies of His Church and the world. 

—Andrew Murray

Could you use some rest?

Ps. 91:1 From the Strong’s Lexicon


He that dwells (to remain–stay put) in the shelter (secret place) of the Most High will abide (pass the night, abide, to cause to rest) in the shadow of the Almighty.

If you want to find rest for your life, seek to abide in Jesus in the secret place, daily.

Are you thirsty?

Come and take a drink

I probably have a Bible in every room of my house. How about you?  And, oh, how I love reading devotionals. But, here is what I have discovered, you can have a doctorate of divinity degree and be a master at teaching or preaching the Word. You can be using the latest software programs for studying the Bible. You can start your day with e-mail devotionals before you get out of bed. However, all of these resources will not necessarily help you spiritually unless you daily take His Word and prayer deep inside your spirit—during times of quiet.

He spoke

I created you, and I know what you need. Don’t allow busyness to crowd out prayer and time in the Word, daily. If you do, you will be spiritually malnourished.

You can have peace in your life.

You can be free from sexual sins.

You can experience joy, contentment, and see your prayers answered.

You can be wise and successful.  

What do you need?

You need to meet with Me in the secret place with prayer and the Word. You need to hunger and thirst for Me more food or water.

You need Me. I am the bread of life.

 “but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water that I shall give him will become in him a well of water springing up into eternal life” (John 4:14).

“Oh, how I love Your law! It is my meditation all the day” (Ps. 119:97