Paul's Prayers & 'Organ Recitals'

Go to a 'Prayer Meeting'. Record the requests that are offered. Compare them to the prayers of the Apostle Paul as found in the Epistles he wrote. Be astonished. Be mortified. Be stunned. Be grieved.

Why?

There is little or no correspondence between what you heard as 'requests' and the prayers of Paul. The former were what I label 'organ recitals'. Almost entirely requests for physical ailments of one kind or another. That might be legitimate if there were also a corresponding number of requests for spiritual power, forgiveness of sin, confession and repentance, etc. Not so. Paul left Trophimus at Miletus sick (2 Tim 4:20). It is not recorded that he prayed after the fashion we hear most often in our Prayer Meetings. 'Organ Recitals!'

I offer just one passage that is typical of Paul's prayers. Please consider and imitate as you pray.

I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers,  17 that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory,

1.  may give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, 

2.  having the eyes of your hearts enlightened,

3.  that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you,

4.  what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, 

5.  and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe,

I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers,  17 that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him,  18 having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints,  19 and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might  20 that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places,  21 far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come.  22 And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church,  23 which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.  (Ephesians 1:16-23).

On The Backs of The Poorest

But it’s the poor who are really losing. The poorest third of households buy half of all lotto tickets, according to a Duke University study in the 1980s, in part because lotteries are advertised most aggressively in poorer neighborhoods. A North Carolina report from NC Policy Watch found that the people living in the poorest counties buy the most tickets. "Out of the 20 counties with poverty rates higher than 20 percent, 18 had lottery sales topping the statewide average of $200 per adult," the North Carolina Justice Center reported.

A 1986 California survey found that lottery players were split 50-50 on whether they played for money or for fun. But among those with less than $30,000, "25 percent more respondents cited money rather than fun, while the reverse was true for those with higher incomes,” wrote Garrick Blalock, David R. Just, and Daniel H. Simon in a study “Hitting the Jackpot or Hitting the Skids.” The researchers made another damning discovery: Local lottery ticket sales rise with poverty, but movie ticket sales do not. In other words, lotto games are not merely another form of cheap entertainment. They are also a prayer against poverty. This fits what the researchers call the “desperation hypothesis”: States are making their most hopeless citizens addicted to gambling to pay for government services.

Some policymakers argue that the moral cost of lotteries is low. After all, the games are voluntary. And perhaps the money collected by the state is better off going to schools than to booze and cigarettes and whatever else.

But to see the true source of the lottery’s appeal, don’t look at poor neighborhoods. Focus on the states. 

Half a century ago, gambling was criminalized in every state except Nevada. As recently as 1980, just 14 states held lotteries. Today it’s 43. A political cynic might say lotteries are the perfect public policy: A tax disguised as a game without an organized lobby to oppose it. Corporate income taxes punish corporations, and companies respond with lobbyists. Personal income taxes and estate taxes hurt the rich, and rich families fund elections, so no need to elaborate on that problem. But lotteries disproportionately affect the poor, who vote at lower rates, donate less to campaign funds, and have inconstant representation on K Street and its equivalents in the states. So no surprise that, as recently as 2009, lotteries provided more revenue than state corporate-income taxes in 11 of the 43 states where they were legal, including Delaware, Rhode Island, and South Dakota.

In an age of rising income inequality, it’s pernicious that states rely on monetizing the desperate hope of its poorest residents. State lotteries take from the poor to spare the rich, all while marching under the banner of voluntary entertainment. Banning lotto games will not make our poorest communities suddenly rich. But these neighborhoods have lost enough lotteries in life even before they touch a penny to the scratch-off ticket.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/lotteries-americas-dollar70-billion-shame/ar-BBjCfp2