2003-03-06
Good Morning Cherished Readers,
I am led to continue writing about LK 11: 1-13, Christ’s teaching on prayer. As we saw in yesterday’s message, the Lord’s Prayer, in LK 11: 2-4, is an example of everything we should include in our personal prayer messages to the Father. It contains these elements: an indication of the intimate family relationship between God and the believer; our longing to be reverent, to magnify God’s name, and to adore Him; our eagerness for His Kingdom to be established and for an end to evil; our request for our own needs; our acknowledgement of our utter dependence on Him; forgiveness based on our own willingness to forgive; the healthy distrust we feel of our own ability to resist temptation without His help. This makes a prayer a very personal message to God, one which acknowledges His wonderful attributes, His power, why He deserves our thanks and praise, the confession of our shortcomings, and finally, our requests for what we need.
As we go on in this passage we come to the teaching in LK 11: 9, “Ask, and you will receive; seek, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you.” Christ uses the example of a parent’s willingness to give things to his children, even through he might be quite selfish in other ways. Of course, He is not indicating there is any selfishness in His Father, but He is trying to point out that the love of a parent is available to those who “ask, seek, and knock.” Just as in the case that Christ discusses in LK 11: 5-8, persistent asking, seeking, and knocking may be necessary at times, but never without a righteous reason on the part of the Father. LK 11: 10 teaches that everyone who asks receives, who seeks finds, and who knocks will have the door opened to him. The answer will eventually be, “yes,” if our requests are in keeping with God’s teaching. JN 15: 7, “If you remain in Me and My words in you, then you will ask for anything you wish, and you shall have it.” I like Les Feldick’s teaching on the issue of God’s responses to our prayerful pleas. Les says, “God will give us one of three answers, “yes,” “no,” or “maybe later.” The “yes” answer lets us know that our plea is for something which God feels we should have, something that aligns with His agenda. The “no” answer is never for an unrighteous reason. It is most likely that God has something better planned for us or that our plea doesn’t fit into His plan for us. It’s the “maybe later” answer that seems to give us the most trouble. Our human limitations won’t always allow us to see God’s perfect timing, so we are called upon to trust Him and wait until that moment arrives. We must understand what we learn in JER 29: 11-13, “I alone know the plans I have for you, plans to bring you prosperity and not disaster, plans to bring about the future you hope for. Then you will call to Me. You will come and pray to Me, and I will answer you. You will seek Me, and you will find Me because you will seek Me with all your heart.”
God has never wanted to hold all His blessings to Himself, for our God is not a selfish Deity. One of His great desires is to shower His blessings on us, and He eagerly awaits the times when we seek Him out. For us to learn certain necessary lessons for our sanctification (the process of God perfecting us), we must sometimes be brought to brokenness, because God knows it’s the only way we will finally have the sense to turn to Him. That is why after Paul complained about having a malady three times without hearing immediately from God in 2 COR 12: 8. Finally God answered, and His reply in 2 COR 12: 9a was, “My grace is sufficient, for My power is strongest when you are weak.” The sad truth is that all too often we want to rely on human understanding or human power for the solution to problems that only God can really solve for us [PR 3: 5-6].
LK 11: 13 ends this passage on Christ’s teaching on defensive prayer. “As bad as you are, you know how to give good things to your children. How much more, then, will the Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask for Him!” To me, this means the power of the Holy Spirit, because we know that we received the gift of the Holy Spirit to indwell in us when we came to faith in Christ. I make this distinction, because it is the basis of my assertion that before we do any task for the Lord, we should take these three steps: 1) confess our sins; 2) empty our spiritual vessels of human agendas; 3) ask the Lord to fill our vessels with the Holy Spirit’s power, so that He is in leadership as we do the task. My own experience tells me that when I do this, the Holy Spirit will see me through the task and will light my fire for the Lord while I’m doing it. This can’t help but benefit me and the people around me. When it does, all the glory for that belongs to the Lord. In looking over the principles that Christ teaches in this LK 11: 1-13 passage, we can see a lot of elements in it that are designed to change our thinking about things like our need to seek out the Lord, for persistence in prayer, for learning the Lord’s will through studying the Scriptures, for learning to ask for things that will carry out the Lord’s will, for being patient in waiting for the Lord to answer, for not relying on human thinking in solving our problems, for not being afraid to ask the Lord for what we need, for His need at times to bring us to brokenness, so that we will listen for His commands and rely on Him, for our need to appeal to Him for the Holy Spirit’s power before doing a task for Him, and for having the experience of prayer’s power over evil. We must examine our own prayer lives and see how these principles apply to them.
PRAYER: O Lord, what a great blessing we have in Your presence in our lives and Your willingness to bless us. We begin today’s prayer by blessing You, acknowledging You for Your most magnificent heart of love, for the sacrifice of Your Son on the cross for our salvation, for the gift of Your Spirit to teach, guide, and encourage us, for Your mercy, and for Your faithfulness over mankind’s history. We praise You for all that You are and all that You do. We place our trust in You, knowing that You never do anything that isn’t righteous. Dearest Abba, we know that we are sinners in need of Your guidance, teaching, rebuking (at times), and correction. You lift us up when we discover that we can place our burdens on Your shoulders and You are so willing to carry them. In our darkest hour, we can turn to You, and You never abandon us. These words from the Scriptures come to mind: PS 108: 4-5, “Your great love reaches to the skies, Your truth to the heavens. God, You are supreme above the skies. Let Your glory be over all the earth.” PS 31: 3-4, “You are indeed my Rock and my Fortress; for Your name’s sake lead me and guide me, take me out of the net that is hidden for me, for You are my Refuge.” PS 61: 1-2, “Hear my cry, O God; listen to my prayer: From the end of the earth I call to You, when my heart is faint.” 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.” We thank You for giving us prayer, the channel by which we can always keep in touch with You. We pledge to listen carefully for Your commands and obey them. We humbly confess our sins and offer You our adoration, worship, loyalty, diligence, honor, glory, trust, obedience, thanks, and eternal praise. In Christ’s name, amen.
The Spirit leads me to write tomorrow about how God has given Satan permission to test us for a very important reason. We have specific directions on how to respond to these tests found in the Scriptures, and we’ll look at those then. When Peter and I moved to Minnesota, we didn’t know anyone here and were thousands of miles away from our families. God loves us so much that He put us in a congregation that has become our extended family in Christ. Over the ten years we have been here, God has seen to it that our spirits have been nourished, we have access to wonderful fellowship, and that He is always there for us. That is why I know that somehow, He will see us through the challenges to our faith that financial stress and illness have presented us. As with anyone who has faith, we can turn to God and pray that He will deliver us from our trouble in His own way and in His perfect time. IS 49: 14-16 reminds us that He will never abandon us, because our names are written on the palms of His hands. Such love is not available from any other source. That is why I can boldly say that each person who has enduring faith and who obeys God can rely on His love for him. Peter and I send each of you our love too.
Grace Be With You Always,
Lynn