This Servant School talk addressed the importance of making personal commitments to prayer, study and action as a way to become better slaves of Christ and to help overcome any bondage to the flesh. Clem Walters gave practical suggestions about each of the three areas.
Transcript
This document is a direct transcript of an audio recording, and may contain transcription errors and other minor edits for the sake of clarity.
CLEM: Based on my primitive numbering system, tonight is Servant School talk number ten. I see some nods, so that must be right.
Tonight’s talk is meant to be a follow-up to last week’s talk, which asks us to honestly evaluate our present status to determine whether we are slaves—that is, in bondage—to our weak human natures, or to Jesus Christ. In the process of evaluating that, it’s important that we admit to ourselves the true present state of affairs in each of our lives.
And once we’ve done that, we then must take some action. That is, we can’t just allow ourselves to do nothing once we’ve evaluated our present state of affairs.
I’d like to quote from James 1, and this is a passage that we had used in an earlier talk. This is verses 22 to 25.
Do not fool yourselves by just listening to his word. Instead, put it into practice. For whoever listens to the word, but does not put it into practice, is like a man who looks in the mirror and sees himself as he is. He takes a look at himself, and then goes away, and at once forgets what he looks like. But the man who looks closely into the perfect law that sets men free, who keeps paying attention to it and does not simply listen and then forget it, but puts it into practice, that man will be blessed by God in what he does.
So that passage has told us that we shouldn’t fool ourselves by just listening to his word or to words. But instead, we must put into practice what we’ve learned or what we’ve heard.
If we’re presently in bondage, that is, a slave, to our human nature, thus being open to Satan’s attacks through our habits, thought processes, where we spend our time, and on what we spend our money on [sic], we must call upon the name of Jesus, ask him to wash us clean of our sins, and commit ourselves to be his slave, to be in bondage only to Jesus Christ.
Now, if help is needed to accomplish that—once we’ve evaluated our present state of affairs, and we find to some degree that we are in bondage to our weak human natures, and we have difficulty, then, asking Jesus to wash us clean of our sins, or we find difficulty in committing ourselves or those areas of our lives that we in fact are in bondage to our human nature, if we have difficulty with all of that, then we have to admit that we need some help. And there is help that is needed. And that is through the brothers and sisters in the prayer room.
And if that’s too late [in the evening], it’s possible to call Jeanne for an early appointment and to have someone from the prayer room team spend some time, and to help you through that and through those areas.
But once that’s accomplished, there’s something else that we have to do. In other words, we must take action to fulfill that commitment to Jesus—that is, to be in bondage and be a slave only to him.
It just doesn’t happen automatically. That is, once we’ve evaluated our state of affairs, we’ve sought help from someone in the prayer room team, as an example, or a group of people to get through that, then we’ve got to take some further action. There’s just a logical consequence, a logical step that must be taken. And that is—the way we proceed, then, to become a slave of Jesus or to be in bondage only to him is to commit ourselves to regular, daily prayer, study, and action.
And for those of us who may have heard those words some years back, having made a Cursillo, you’ll recall that the three go together: that prayer, study, and action have to be considered together. And the way it was described during the Cursillo talk is about the best description that I could think of, and that is to consider the three items as a tripod. And if you consider a three-legged tripod, if any of the legs of that tripod are shorter than the rest, the tripod becomes unstable. That is, if prayer, study, and action—if any one of them are shorter or out of proportion to the other two, then the tripod becomes unstable, and it tips, and is very likely to fall over.
If any of the legs of the tripod are missing, of course, it no longer is a tripod. It can’t stand, and it’s of no value at all. That is, if any one of those important ingredients in committing ourselves to be a slave of Jesus—that is, prayer, study, and action in a regular, daily commitment—if any of those are missing totally, then the tripod falls; it’s of no value. So the same, then, is true of our prayer, study, and Christian action.
If there’s a shortage of one or two of those legs of the tripod, we too become unstable.
If one of the three elements are entirely missing, we can’t stand up under Satan’s attacks. We tend to fluctuate, from being very high—way up high—or very low. But finally, we fall, just as the tripod with one leg missing falls.
So one of the exercises tonight will be, a little later, asking everyone to make their own personal, private, written commitment to prayer, study, and action.
And it’s just for your own private use. That is, it’s not for anyone else’s eyes, or it’s not to be turned in or anything. It’s just a matter of—sometime a little later—of making that commitment. What I’d like to do before we do that is to briefly comment on each area of prayer, study, and action, offering some practical suggestions on how you might proceed in making a commitment—a commitment to the Lord, to be his slave.
To the item and the whole area of prayer—and this is not meant to be complete by any means; I’m sure a lot of you will think of some items that should be added around the whole area of prayer.
If Jesus Christ is the most important person in our lives, that is, the very center of our total existence, on whom our very life depends, shouldn’t we at least talk with him each day? He should rank at least as high as the people we live or work with. We at least say, in most cases, “Good morning” [Clem laughs lightly] to those people that we work with and live with, and we at least say, “Good night,” and oftentimes there’s a lot of other conversation in between. But shouldn’t Jesus rank at least as high as that?
The Lord, through prophecy, established communal household morning praise and evening prayer very early in the community’s development—People of Praise community. Some of the things that are used in household morning prayer and evening prayer are such things as, song, the Psalms, Scripture. The households are open to prophecy and all the other word gifts, as an example.
But even though the Lord established that in the People of Praise very early, the fact that we’re all committed to communal morning prayer and evening prayer, we found that that was not enough.
We must develop a personal prayer habit. Now, there are many forms available in developing that personal prayer habit. But I recommend very highly the use of our own “21/31.” And for those of you that haven’t seen that or don’t know what that is, I’ll pass a few around later. There are 15 points on the 21/31, and as I recall, the difference is whether you spend two minutes on each point or three minutes [sic—it would be one or two minutes], as to whether the whole thing takes 21 minutes or 31 minutes. That’s what it stands for.
But the point there is that we’ve got to develop a personal prayer habit, each and every day, if we’re going to be a slave of Jesus and be in bondage only to him. And it’s important that as we do that, that we use a format, that we use something in writing—a form, a regular form—because if we don’t do that, we tend to drift off. We find ourselves planning our day, if we do it in the morning, or thinking about other things. And at least partially, that’s eliminated if we use a format or a form. Some people might have a format or form that’s just as good as the 21-31, but I recommend it very highly.
Many people in the households in the community can tell if you’ve missed your personal prayer time during the day. It has that importance in each of their lives, and the overall makeup of the life in the household. So some people are able to say to you, without—you know, in love, “Clem, you’ve missed your personal prayer time today, haven’t you?” Because they can tell it.
Okay, under the whole area of prayer, another very important prayer opportunity is regular Mass and church service worship. And many people commit themselves to an extra weekly Mass or an extra weekly service. And many Catholics, in the area of prayer, still say—commit themselves to a daily rosary.
Okay, the other leg of our tripod. We’ll move on from prayer to study. If you’re going to be in bondage, that is, a slave, to someone, shouldn’t you find out everything about that person before making that commitment?
In fact, I’m sure that you can remember the old saying that you’re known by the company you keep. That was something my mother beat into me as I was nearing the teenage years: that you’re really known by the company you keep. And you can get into serious trouble by just being in the wrong group at the wrong time.
So shouldn’t we find out everything about that person that we want to be in bondage and in slavery to? A good way to proceed, in knowing everything that you can about Jesus is to read the New Testament. And a good way to do that is to read it from cover to cover. And for that to have some meaning, you need a translation that is a little easier to read. And there are many translations.
Many people commit themselves to just a few pages a day of the New Testament. That’s a good place to start in knowing about Jesus. Some can make a chapter or two a day. But the key in your commitment is to having a regular, daily commitment to something in the New Testament. And it’s good to start at the—right at the beginning of the New Testament and begin reading. If it’s two pages a day, a chapter a day, or whatever you can do, the ide-, the main point there is, you’re consistent in that.
Now, while doing this, you can still continue to pray for passages and continue to use the New Testament or the Old Testament in that way also. Just because you’re beginning and you have a bookmark in Matthew doesn’t mean that you can’t pray and use the Bible for that. Allow the Lord to speak to you in that way.
So after you’ve gotten through the New Testament, then it’s good to begin on the Old Testament. Because if you’re going to learn about Jesus Christ, after getting through the New Testament, it’s really important that you begin working on the Old Testament.
If you find yourself being bored reading the Old Testament from cover to cover, especially with those whole areas that are very repetitious, and you find all those names that you can’t pronounce, you know, all that . . . thing, feel free to disregard that. Feel free to—when you get to a whole page of names, if you’re bored with that, you have difficulty with that—skip it! If you find areas that it’s very obvious that you’ve read in an earlier passage and you already know what the outcome is, then skip it. You can even speed-read those things.
But the key there is after the New Testament, to begin working on the Old Testament consistently, and make your—make a commitment to that. After or during that time, in the area of study, you can pick a good book or a good magazine; I might recommend New Covenant. In other words, you’re committing yourself, then, to reading a few pages or a chapter a day of a good book, or of a New Covenant, or both.
Now, oftentimes, it’s important to get assistance in selecting the right book, so that you don’t start out with something that you’re not ready for spiritually or otherwise. And there are a lot of people that can provide you with some help who’ve read just a lot of books, and they kind of know what, you know, what they might—what it might do, and how it might affect you. So if you need help in that area, after making a commitment, I’d be happy to direct you to a number of people who, if you just tell them kind of like what you’re interested in, they can direct you to that. But the key there is to get on with it.
And again, committing yourself to a few pages or chapters a day. If you just can’t get into the book that’s been recommended, it’s one of those books that, you get into it about a chapter or two, and it’s just very painful, you just can’t get with it: just don’t get bogged down with it. Set it aside, or give it back, and start over.
But the point there is to start again, if you’ve made a commitment, to reading a good book, a spiritual book.
I might just briefly share with you: in 1965, I committed myself, in one of these written commitment things that I’m suggesting to you, to reading just two pages of Scripture a day, and just two pages of other good spiritual reading—a book—per day.
And since 1965—of course, oftentimes you can’t stop with two pages; oftentimes, you find yourself moving on to the third or fourth page—but the point was that my only commitment was to two pages a day of each. But since 1965, I’ve plowed through a whole shelf of books, and all the way through the New Testament a couple times, and the Old Testament as well.
So it might sound like a very meager commitment. But if you stay with it on a daily basis, it will help you know Jesus. And it will help you know who it is that you’re going to be in bondage to and committed to.
So the whole area, then, we’ll move on to that whole other area, the other leg of the tripod, and that’s action. So if we’re going to be in bondage to Jesus Christ, being his follower, responding to his call to be a disciple—that is, to spread the good news, and spread the good news over the whole world—we can’t be turned in on ourselves.
But our prayer and study must have some outward expression. So if we’re doing all that prayer and we’re doing all that study, it must be expressed in action. Now, this action could be witnessing and laying down our lives in daily service in our own household. That could be one area that we could begin action, the third leg of the tripod. Could be that we’re going to lay down our lives in daily service in the households, in our work situations. Or being open to receiving and using, for the sake of others, the spiritual gifts. That’s a—that is an area of action, to be really open to receiving the spiritual gifts and using them for the sake of others.
This action could be actively participating in community outreaches. That is, at the prayer meeting, as one example; that could be your action. It could be just being with people before the prayer meeting, being open to picking out someone and talking with them. Or working a Life in the Spirit seminar, or all those other things that are involved around the prayer meeting.
This action could be active or just financial support of your parish or church activities. Or, as most churches and parishes have, a social or Christian Action committee or commission. And if you can’t support it actively, you may be able to support it financially in some regular way. Certainly a very worthwhile form of action.
In that whole area of Christian action, you’ve got to remember that there are a lot of good things to do. But we must choose wisely, that is, selecting the best of the good things to do, remembering that the action leg of our tripod must not become imbalanced or too long.
And there are many examples of people who have become imbalanced in the action part. They become “Christian action” people, and they have not stayed with their prayer and their study. And as a result, they’ve burned out. That leg of the tripod was far too long, and it toppled over. And they’re—they burned out.
In the time remaining, which is just a very short time, I’m going to pass out just a piece of paper. And this is for your own private use. It’s not to be handed in, and what I’m asking you to do is to use this piece of paper as a reminder to begin, in the few minutes that’s remaining here, or just to take it home and have that piece of paper—just a plain old piece of paper—as a reminder that if you’re going to be committed to Jesus and be in bondage to him, that the only way that it will actually work—and I promise that it does work—is if—that you do make this commitment. And you should do—make it in writing for yourself. For many years I had my commitment taped on the mirror, where every morning, as I shaved—that was a sure place to be every morning—that I could see it. That meant that everyone else in the house could see it too.
So, as the paper goes out—I’ll do that in a few minutes—I’ll just summarize very quickly some of the examples in each category. In other words, in each—each category of prayer, study, and action. I wanna give you just a summary, quickly, of some of the things that you might commit yourself to, so that really sticks, and it means something to you for the rest of your life.
In the whole area of prayer, I talked about communal household morning and evening prayer and commitment to that. And if you already have a commitment to that, then you need to maybe commit yourself to participating more actively in your household prayer, being open to using the spiritual gifts, or saying something to build the others up.
One of the things I mentioned was making a commitment to personal prayer. I suggested a form, which was 21/31. Another thing I suggested in the area of prayer was that you might commit yourself to an extra Mass or worship service. And I also suggested that you may want to consider committing yourself to a daily rosary.
In the area of study, I suggested that you commit yourself to a few pages or a chapter of the New Testament, starting at the very beginning. Or, after finishing that, moving on to the Old Testament. I suggested reading, and committing yourself to reading, the New Covenant. I suggested that you might commit yourself to a good religious book. I suggested in study that community or CRS tape cassettes is a very valuable way to study.
In the area of action, I suggested daily service to household members, or work situations. Servant School is a very good form of action. I suggested use of the spiritual gifts, being open to that and using them as your action. I suggested the com—the prayer meeting, and other outreaches of the community. Or, to be active or to offer financial support of the church’s or parish activities.
I think the point of it all is that the only way that I know to persevere in your commitment to be a slave of Jesus and to serve only him, and to have that deepened daily, and for the rest of your life, is to commit yourself in writing: to think it through, to pray it through, to write it down, and to—each and every day, to stick with it, ask the Lord to help you stick with it.
And there’ll be great rejoicing in heaven by virtue of that.
Okay, I’m just going to pass out the pieces of paper, and it’ll just merely be a reminder. You can take them home, and work with them.
Copyright © 2022 People of Praise, Inc.