Pastor Brian's Article for 03/23/2008

Jesus makes it clear in the Lord’s Prayer that we are to ask for the things that we need.  In other places in the gospels, He tells us to ask for whatever we want.  Such passages have been twisted.  This twisted teaching makes it sound like God is the great wish grantor.  Some teachers make it sound as if God is at our “beck and call.”  They make Him sound like our servant rather than we His.  We may not subscribe to that errant theology, but are our prayers really that far from “name it, claim it”?

When God does not answer our prayers, we get angry with Him.  The writer of Psalm 42 is in anguish because he can’t seem to find God.  God does not seem to be paying any attention to him.  Is it possible that our railing against God for not answering our prayers comes from our own selfishness? 

When you are most focused on prayer, what is your subject?  When you storm the gates of heaven, is self-interest at the heart of your prayers?  In the middle of a crisis, do your petitions arise from a deep concern for yourself?  Christians who were huddled in bomb shelters during World War II prayed for God to protect them from the bombs.  Their focus was on the bombs and not on God.   Did God fail them if some of them were killed in the attack? 

Ego can be quite a bully when it comes to intercession.  It makes strong demands of God and pushes God around.  Even worse, however, is its tendency to sulk when it does not get its way.  Like spoiled little children

we must have what we ask for.  In our desperate need to be right, we bully God to drop His agenda for the world and to pick up ours.  If we are not careful, our prayers for ourselves can put God in a box.  There He is captive to our narrow will and piety.  No matter how earnestly we pray, the eternal plan of God is not going to be altered by our will. 

In the Garden of Gethsemane, we see Jesus pray the only prayer that focused on Him. He did not want to die on the cross.  He did not want to suffer the incredible pain for man’s sin.  He did not want to be separated from the Father as He bore the sin of mankind.  All of that is understandable, but the plan from the beginning was that Jesus do just that.  Was the Father going to change His plan to meet Jesus’ request?  No, He was not.  Intercession is not wrong, but it must be prayed in the attitude of, “Not my will, but yours be done.” 

When Jesus prayed in John 17, He prayed for His disciples.  He prayed for all that would come to believe in Him.  He prayed for the mission of the church.  The center of the prayer was unity with the Father.  He wanted all who would came to know Him to know the Father as He did.  Paul prayed that the Galatians would be conformed to Christ.  Our prayers, whatever the subject, should lead us to Christ.

Here are three guidelines for our intercession:  First, feel free to ask the loving Father for the desires of your heart.  Second, we have to agree that what we want can be set aside to meet the demands of a higher will.  Third, our ultimate motivation for prayer should not be that we want something from God, but that we want God. 

We have the privilege to come before God to make our requests known to Him.  In his deep love for us, Christ may say “no.”  “Yet whatever His answer, we love Him because He is Christ and not because He grants our petitions.”

That Jesus May Be Revealed,

Brian

Taken from A Hunger for The Holy, Calvin Miller, chapter 5

Scripture References:

Matthew 5:23-24  – Giving to God is to be approached with such reverential awe that we dare not mar the experience with unconfessed sin. Let us examine ourselves, ask for forgiveness for our sins, and then present our gifts to God.

1 Corinthians 15:3-8 – For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. After that He appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep; then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles; and last of all, as to one untimely born, He appeared to me also.