2020-03-05
Good Morning Dear Ones,
Today, I’ve been commanded by the Holy Spirit to write about what our prayers mean to God. This entire unit is designed to provide supporting Scriptures to the book of Colossians and to examine our relationships with God (vertical) and other people (horizontal). The night prior to His arrest, Jesus saw that His disciples were unable to remain awake in the Garden of Gethsemane, despite His plea for them to pray for Him. MT 26: 41, “Keep watch and pray that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” In between, Christ uttered in verses 42 and 45-46, “My Father, if this cup of suffering cannot be taken away unless I drink it, Your will be done…Look! The hour has come for the Son of Man to be handed over to the power of sinners. Get up, let us go. Look, here is the man who is betraying me.” The sins of mankind are at the center of what is Christ’s greatest concern. We must remember that Christ is God’s second personality, and the Holy Spirit is the third One. We see here that the Lord Jesus was acutely aware of the betrayal of Judas Iscariot, the man who would indicate Christ should be arrested and crucified. Christ’s frustration was the sleeping of His disciples, whose prayers on Christ’s behalf would have been powerful and heard by the Father (God’s first personality). We must also remember that Christ plea in the Sermon on the Mount, back in MT 6: 13, had been; “Do not bring us to hard testing, but keep us safe from the evil one.”
Our weakness in giving in to temptation brings us closer to the devil, and that is our Lord’s deep concern. And yet, in 1 COR 10: 13, we have been given an important promise in exchange for our faith in God. “Every test that you have experienced is the kind that normally comes to people. But God keep His promise, and He will not allow you to be tested beyond your power to remain firm, at the time you are put to the test. He will give you the strength to endure it, and so provide you with a way out.” No part of this promise means that the Lord Himself won’t test our faith at times. PS 139: 23-24, “Examine me and know my mind, O God; test me and discover my thoughts. Find out if my motives are evil, and guide me in the everlasting way,” the Psalmist prays, knowing these tests will come. They assume God’s omniscience, as does what we learn in HE 4: 13. “There is nothing that can be hidden from God. Everything in all creation is exposed and lies open before His eyes. And it is to Him that we must all give account of ourselves.” We can safely assume God’s consistency of teaching, as well. HE 13: 8, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.”
We see the power of prayer, how it should be offered, and for whom it should be offered, in 1 TIM 2: 1-4, “All prayers, petitions, requests, and thanks should be offered to God for all people, for kings (authorities) that we may live quiet, peaceful lives with proper conduct for those who revere God. This is good and pleasing to our Savior, who wants all to know the truth and be saved.” Salvation, justification, and eternal forgiveness-the three opportunities for us bought by Christ’s Atonement-all assume God’s protection from the work of the devil (production of temptation, which leads to sinning). We also know that sinning is what puts distance between ourselves and God, and it has the power to prevent our opportunities offered by Christ to gain eternal life. Serial sinning for which there is no remorse wastes Christ’s great sacrifice on the cross. And yes, that is how our prayers, which mean so much to God, can be offered without genuine faith and obedience to His teaching. God’s greatest desire is for us to know the truth and offer our prayers with genuine faithful obedience to Him. Repentance of our sins is essential to the gaining of eternal life with our Lord [JN 6: 39-40; EPH 1: 4-5; EPH 6: 18]. Christ doesn’t want to lose anyone given by the Father to come to faith. We are to pray on every occasion as the Holy Spirit leads and never give up.
The prayers of people for others bring those who are giving in to the evil one to Christ’s attention. Our Lord realizes the tremendous task that the Father has placed before Him to do. These prayers focus Christ’s attention on individual and corporate sinners, and He has pity for them. Sinners are like sheep without a Shepherd, “sheep who have gone astray, each going his own way “[IS 53: 6-7]. The Lord took on the punishment that was due for this sinning, instead of passing it on to them (us). This is what made Him say, “The fields are white and ready for the harvest, but there are few workers (witnesses, who would reach out to those laboring in unbelief). This prayer is very personal to me, as a mature believer, who feels called to witness to my faith to those who will listen.
PRAYER: O Lord, we come before Your mighty throne in reverence and awe. Those of us who believe in Christ with all our hearts, know that the only way to gain eternal life is through faithful obedience to Him. An adulthood, of studying the Bible and working to please the Lord through the way we follow His teaching, has humbled us and led us to acknowledge Your greatness. We respect that You created us to be able to learn the everlasting way and to come closer to You through resisting temptation to sin. We are far from perfect and are still sinners. However, we share Your thirst for the truth and desire to please You. As we become older, we feel the pressure even more keenly to transmit the truth we learn from You to those without faith. We have learned to look for the blessings that come from Your work with us and to search out opportunities in our relationships with others to witness to our faith. We can do this either by the example we set or by the words we say. We praise and thank You for the open channel of prayer, for intervening in our lives when we need Your help, and for Your wise direction when we are at a crossroads or are having trouble in moving forward in our faithful obedience to You. Always be with us and keep your wisdom open to us. These are the prayers we offer in the holy/mighty name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
NEXT WEEK: I’m commanded to discuss the things for what we should pray. Obviously, issues important to the Lord are high on that list. More Scriptures supporting the book of Colossians will be presented and our examination of our horizontal relationships with other people and vertical relationship with God will be a part of this plan. The workers who are to reap the harvest, mentioned in MT 9: 37-38, are laborers and not craftsmen. There is a great difference, as laborers are given what to reap by the Lord, and craftsmen place their expertise and self-crafted concepts on the table. To laborers, God is the focus of life and learning; to craftsmen, their own ideas are. This is the difference between lives lived with God at their center and ones lived with mankind at their center. There is never a need for a laborer to brag (except about God’s person and accomplishments). A craftsman will brag about his own or another person’s attributes or deeds. Ask yourself, which one are you? Examine possible sins for which confession is needed. We all should do this and confess even the most subtle sins to our Lord. He listens to every prayer we offer, no matter when. Praise and thanks be to Him!
Grace Be With You Always,
Lynn
JS 24: 15
© Lynn Johnson 2020. All Rights Reserved.
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