|
PRAYER
CHRISTIANS PRACTICE FELLOWSHIP WITH GOD
He said to them, When you pray, say: Father, hallowed be your name, your
kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread. Forgive us our sins, for
we
also forgive everyone who sins against us. And lead us not into
temptation.
LUKE 11:2-4
God made us and has redeemed us for fellowship with himself, and that is
what
prayer is. God speaks to us in and through the contents of the Bible,
which
the Holy Spirit opens up and applies to us and enables us to understand.
We
then speak to God about himself, and ourselves, and people in his world,
shaping what we say as response to what he has said. This unique form of
two-way conversation continues as long as life lasts.
The Bible teaches and exemplifies prayer as a fourfold activity, to be
performed by Gods people individually both in private (Matt. 6:5-8) and in
company with each other (Acts 1:14; 4:24). Adoration and praise are to be
expressed; contrite confession of sin is to be made and forgiveness
sought;
thanks for benefits received are to be offered; and petitions and
supplications for ourselves and others are to be voiced. The Lords Prayer
(Matt. 6:9-13; Luke 11:2-4) embodies adoration, petition, and confession;
the
Psalter consists of models of all four elements of prayer.
Petition, in which the persons praying humbly acknowledge their need and
express themselves as trustfully depending on God to meet it out of his
sovereign resources of wisdom and goodness, is the dimension of prayer
that
is most constantly highlighted in the Bible (e.g., Gen. 18:16-33; Exod.
32:31-33:17; Ezra 9:5-15; Neh. 1:5-11; 4:4-5, 9; 6:9, 14; Dan. 9:4-19;
John
17; James 5:16-18; Matt. 7:7-11; John 16:23-24; Eph. 6:18-20; 1 John
5:14-16). Petition, along with the other modes of prayer, should
ordinarily
be directed to the Father, as the Lords Prayer shows, but Christ may be
called on for salvation and healing, as in the days of his flesh (Rom.
10:8-13; 2 Cor. 12:7-9), and the Holy Spirit for grace and peace (Rev.
1:4).
It cannot be wrong to present petitions to God as triune or to request any
spiritual blessing from any one of the three Persons, but there is wisdom
in
following the New Testament pattern.
Jesus teaches that petition to the Father is to be made in his name (John
14:13-14; 15:16; 16:23-24). This means invoking his mediation, as the one
who
secures our access to the Father, and looking to him for support, as our
intercessor in the Fathers presence. We can only, however, look to him for
support when what we ask accords with Gods revealed will (1 John 5:14) and
our own motives in asking are right (James 4:3).
Jesus teaches that we may properly press God hard with fervent persistence
when we bring needs to him (Luke 11:5-13; 18:1-8), and that he will answer
such prayer in positive terms. But we must remember that God, who knows
what
is best in a way that we do not, may deny our specific requests as to how
the
needs should be met. If he does, however, it is because he has something
better to give than what we asked for, as was the case when Christ denied
Paul healing for the thorn in his flesh (2 Cor. 12:7-9). To say Your will
be
done, surrendering ones own expressed preference to the Fathers wisdom as
Jesus did in Gethsemane (Matt. 26:39-44), is the most explicit way of
expressing faith in the goodness of what God has planned.
There is no tension or inconsistency between the teaching of Scripture on
Gods sovereign foreordination of all things and on the efficacy of prayer.
God foreordains the means as well as the end, and our prayer is
foreordained
as the means whereby he brings his sovereign will to pass.
Christians who pray to God sincerely, with reverence and humility, with a
sense of privilege and a pure (i.e., purified, penitent) heart, will find
in
themselves a Spirit-given filial instinct prompting prayer to and trust in
their heavenly Father (Gal. 4:6; Rom. 8:15), and a desire to pray that
outruns their uncertainty as to what thoughts they should express (Rom.
8:26-27). The mysterious reality of the Holy Spirits help in prayer
becomes
known only to those who actually pray.
From: Concise Theology by J.I. Packer
|
