2005-12-30
Good Morning Friends of God,
You are addressed this way, because through Christ's death on the cross, He has made each of us friends of God [RO 5: 9-11]. It is by His grace that we can look forward to eternal life with Him, a life of bliss and close fellowship, not through anything we did (except coming to faith in Christ and repenting of our sins) [EPH 2: 8-10]. Having reiterated all of this, it becomes necessary to spend some time writing about the two main methods through which the Lord communicates with us, studying His word and prayer. The former has been discussed at length in other devotions and will, no doubt, be a topic again in the future. But today, I'm led to focus on prayer. Prayer is an integral part of the life of a believer. It's two-way communication between a believer and God, in which God is given His right to speak first.
In His Sermon on the Mount [in MT 6: 5-6] our Lord Jesus makes it crystal clear that the purpose of prayer is to communicate with God, not to be seen by the watching eyes of others. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't engage regularly in corporate prayer in church; it just means that God knows the motives which lead us to pray. Those motives need to be honest, faithful, and out of deeply willing desire to live in line with God's teaching. I can speak to this first-hand, because of my self-centered past. Prayers said out of anger, a desire to show off, or some other evil motive will only be answered as a means of God teaching us a sharply uncomfortable lesson. Prayers said out of a loving, compassionate heart will often be answered-but only in a way which is in the subject's best eternal interests. By the way, we who pray may not understand those "best eternal interests" at the time and may wrongly interpret the answer to our prayer as a disappointment, as God turning us down. We must remember that we have a sovereign and wise God Who is always in control, not a God Who always gives us what we think we want.
Prayer and daily time studying the word of God are two of life's essentials. They are as essential to us as food, clothing, shelter, and transportation-maybe even more so. Our God wants something of us a lot of other people don't. He wants a close relationship which is real, on-going, and very personal with us. I love the description of the church as Christ's "bride." He is our "Bridegroom" Who becomes the Spouse of our eternal life. A spouse cares, worries, celebrates, admires, even respects a person. The "bride" here is intended to share every detail of her life with her Bridegroom. PS 37: 23-24 gives us some insight into this relationship. "The steps of the godly are directed by the Lord. He delights in every detail of their lives. Though they stumble, they will not fall, for the Lord holds them by the hand." I'll never forget the first time my husband, Peter, held me by the hand. I had been a battered wife in my previous marriage of 15 years, and it was so very new to me to have this man hold my hand. To this very day, I look forward to those moments when we simply hold hands. To me, it is the signal that all the awful trouble of the past is finally over. The same can be said of a new believer who is in the process of making the discovery that he is now under the protection of a sovereign, powerful, compassionate, and loving Lord, One much wiser than he could ever be. That doesn't mean that there won't be trouble in the believer's life. But it means that he no longer faces that trouble alone. We must remember that our Lord has promised never to abandon us [IS 49: 14-16; IS 43 :1b-3; HE 13: 5-6].
Prayer is a channel which is always open between the believer and God. While we often use it when we are in a jam, we can and should use it in many other circumstances. Prayer is essential in maintaining a living, dynamic and personal relationship with God. That's what real friends do. They share their sorrows, losses, worries, and victories with each other. It should be the same with man and His very Best Friend, God. My readers may think this writer has finally lost it, but I have a running "conversation" with the Lord. The other day I was vacuuming and jokingly said to Him, "Lord, this job is really boring!" He must have laughed at that and said to me, "Be glad you have a home to vacuum and that you can walk enough to do the job. I know it's boring, so think about something else while you do it." Well, of course the joke's on me! Then, I began to think about the book I'm reading [quite belatedly in my life], C.S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia. I began trying to guess how the particular part of it I'm reading was going to lay out. Before I knew it, I had completed the vacuuming. [By the way, this book charges the imagination, and I hope each of you will buy the thick paperback version of it and enjoy a good, long read]. After that, I had to thank God, another thing we don't do often enough, for having given C.S. Lewis and other good writers the wonderful ideas they have had and me the eyesight to read books.
PRAYER: O Lord, You are truly the Best Friend any of us will ever have. We can pray to You at any time, and Christ is always in the heavenly Holy of Holies to plead to You on our behalf. You are always ready to listen to our prayers and answer them in Your ever-righteous ways [HE 8: 1-2; HE 9: 12; JOB 16: 19-21; PS 116: 1]. No matter where a believer is-in a foxhole during combat under fire; manning a hose trying to save people's lives from a fire; frustrated from knocking down a beautiful display of cans with one's shopping cart, moving his tassel from one side to the other at the end of a school graduation; serving the homeless their Thanksgiving dinners in a shelter-or what he is doing, You are there ready to help in times of trouble and times of victory. Yes Lord, You are there! Heavenly Father, recently we celebrated Thanksgiving, a time when we typically think about the things for which we should be thankful to You. I realized that I need to do this every day of the year, not just once a year. You feel that prayer is so important that You instructed Your Only Son to give us a lesson on how to pray in MT 6: 9-13 [The Lord's Prayer]. IS 43: 1b lets us know about the constantly loving nature of Your feelings for us, Your creation. "Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are Mine." We are Your people, and You own us and everything on earth. That ownership is love-based and wise; it is not evil or cruelly manipulating. 1 PET 2: 9 gives us illumination on what You have done for us. "But you are the chosen race, the King's priests, the holy nation, God's own chosen people, chosen to proclaim the wonderful acts of God, who called you out of darkness into His own marvelous light." You want to hear from us and even, at times as in Job and the Psalms, are willing to hear our angry outbursts with patience. Even then we must remain reverent and obedient toward You. You love us because we are created in Your very own image [GN 1: 27]. While we never deserved it, You gave Your Son on the cross for us, so we could be rescued from slavery to the sinfulness that was brought upon us by Satan. We stand before Your mighty throne today to say, "Thank You, Dear Lord," and to dedicate ourselves to being Your friends Who desire to serve You and, by enduring in our faith, one day be brought back to Your side in heaven. You deserve our praise, worship, and abiding thanks. In Christ, we pray. Amen.
It's no surprise that I must continue on the subject of prayer next week. There is so much the Holy Spirit is directing me to write about it. In the meanwhile, we must understand that our Lord is there for us 24/7. No matter how painful our trials or how exhilarating our victories may be, He is there for us and is vitally interested in them. He already knows our needs [MT 6: 8b] but still wants to hear our prayers anyway. He is there to comfort us in time of loss, heal us in time of illness, and delight in each slow step toward spiritual maturity that we take. If this reminds us of a loving parent, we should not be surprised. PS 103: 13, "The Lord is like a father to His children, tender and compassionate to those who have reverence for Him." PS 56: 13, "You protected me from death and kept me from stumbling, so that I would please You and follow the light that leads to life." Yes, we are the bride preparing for the wedding feast of the Lamb [REV 19: 5-10], and we need to do all we can to do what is necessary to live righteously, follow the example our Bridegroom set for us during His incarnation, and encourage each other in the gift of faith that we have been given. No matter how trying our lives might be, as long as we keep the flame of our faith burning brightly, we will never be alone and abandoned.
Grace Be With You Always,
Lynn