Prayer is hard work. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Sometimes it’s boring, sometimes it takes all of our effort just to focus. Sometimes its long, and so often it is just forgettable. To pray is a discipline—just like learning math, or correct spelling or a new language. Almost nothing about prayer is easy.
So why do it? Why should we go to all the effort to learn how to pray? If it is such hard work, some say, then perhaps we shouldn’t bother with it at all. And often, even if we don’t say it, it is our real attitude. Do we really see it as an important aspect of our lives? Our actions clearly communicate what we really believe. After all, how many of us pray every day? Or even once a week?
The reason we pray is because we really need to. Frankly, we’re desperate. Every time that we look to someone else for help, we are praying to them—especially an authority over us. So if we go to the government and apply for food stamps, we are praying. If we call the police and are looking for help, we are praying. And sometimes we need to call for them. Sometimes we really need the help. Or we could be helping someone else to ask for help. This is the same with God. (Luke 18:1-8)
Who are we praying to?
I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted, with the train of His robe filling the temple. Isaiah 6:1
God isn’t just a spiritual force that looks down upon us with kindness, dropping gifts to us every once in a while —like a non-physical Santa Claus. We constantly have to remember who God really is—he is The Authority behind all authority, the Power behind all powers, the Government behind all governments. He is the King of the Universe—and no one is beside Him. Everyone who has any kind of authority receives their authority from Him. And anyone who has any kind of power gained their power from Him. (John 19:11; Deuteronomy 10:17)
God is the King of kings, the Lord of lords, the Ruler of all presidents, prime ministers, and CEOs. He has all knowledge, and there is no one who knows anything true that God didn’t already know. Who gave God the right to rule? First of all, He made all things, so He can do what he wants with what he made. Second, God is more powerful than anyone else, so who will tell him that he can’t rule? Thirdly, God is more just and merciful than anyone else, and so he is worthy of ruling. (Isaiah 40:26-30)
What is prayer?
Many people see praying as something that is important within ourselves. The equate prayer with “meditation” or “self-talk”. As if prayer is making things happen through encouraging oneself to make them happen. But prayer isn’t like that. If we go to a bank, stand in the lobby and say, to no one in particular, “Please give me a loan, please give me a loan,” nothing will happen. You will have no more money when you walk out of that bank than when you walked in. The way to get a loan is to make a request to one of the workers at the bank who has authority to give you a loan.
Others see prayer as an opportunity to “chat with God”. As if God is a buddy of yours, just hanging by the phone, waiting for you to chew his ear off. This is forgetting who God really is. God is the King of the Universe. If you were to try to call the President of the United States—a much lesser power than God—and you actually got through, and you said, “Hey, how are things going, I just thought I’d tell you some of my problems…” how would the President respond? He’d say something along the lines of, “That’s nice, but I’ve got some REAL problems to deal with…” and then you’d get an earful of dial tone.
What is prayer, really? It is making a request of the King of the Universe. It is seeing your real need, recognizing that God is the one to solve the problem, and taking it to Him. Prayer is an audience before the greatest King that ever existed.
How can we possibly pray?
Then I said, "Woe is me, for I am ruined! Because I am a man of unclean lips, And I live among a people of unclean lips; For my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts." Isaiah 6:5
Now that we understand what prayer really is, the best question is—how do we deserve to pray? We have many marks against us—if we were a great power on earth, then perhaps God would be interested to listen to us, but we are nobodies. If we were really righteous people, then God might want to listen to us, but we aren’t particularly righteous. In fact, we’ve done some evil things, and so why should the King of the Universe even let us into his palace? We aren’t particularly people whom God would listen to.
But He could and would listen to us. The Bible tells us some stuff about God that isn’t common knowledge, so listen to this:
1. God particularly pays attention to the poor
The King of the Universe recognizes that not everyone gets a fair shake. Some people will never get justice in the world because the world doesn’t care about them and won’t listen to them. But God does listen particularly to these people, the non-represented, the disenfranchised, the needy without a voice. God particularly pays attention to these people, and will listen when they cry out to him. So the prayers of the poor are powerful forces in the world, for they make things happen. (Exodus 22:22-24; Psalm 72:12)
2. God particularly listens to his people
Those who are a part of God’s people he calls his children. And so he listens to his people, like a father would listen to his son (and with more attention). How do we know if we are a part of his people? God has chosen a government, and anyone who has committed themselves to live under this government is a part of his people. God’s government is ruled by a King named Jesus. Jesus is the human King of God, and those who have devoted their lives to Jesus are a part of God’s people. So if we want to be heard by God, the best thing to do is to be under Jesus. (Hebrews 4:14-16)
3. God will give us the ability to be righteous
Yes, it is true, we have done evil things. Our speech is often evil, as well as our silence before evil acts. Do we really deserve to go before the Holy King of the Universe and make a request of Him? No, frankly, we don’t. But if we put ourselves under Jesus, then Jesus died to cleanse us from sin. Our evil, unjust acts are forgiven before God. If we repent of our sins before God, then they are forgotten and not held against us. But also, God wants to give us a gift for being a part of His people. This gift is to be holy people, even as Jesus was and is. God grants us his Spirit through Jesus to have His holiness living within us, all the time, so we can be a people that truly deserves to be before God. (Romans 8:14-15)
“Your iniquity is taken away and your sin is forgiven." Isaiah 6:7
Let us ask the question again: why pray? We pray because we need things, and God is willing to listen. We pray because the world is evil and God is powerful enough to change it. We pray because no one else will listen to what God thinks is most important. But most of all, we pray because if we didn’t, we could receive nothing from God. To have gifts from God, to be the people God wants us to be, we must ask. (James 4:2)
Prayer is a powerful tool to meet our needs.
Prayer is possible through Jesus.
No comments:
Post a Comment