A lot of the times, I think we don’t pray because we feel like God is ‘keeping score’ of our prayer life. I know I fall in this category. But a view of God in this way does not encourage us to pray more. It only brings us into despair — and if not despair, then an apathy to avoid prayer and/or any association with God completely.
I mean, if God only saw us in light of our deeds, why bother right? It’s just frustrating at times. And telling someone who doesn’t like to pray to pray more for the sake of ‘Christendom’ would only make that person hate the idea of prayer even more. We hate the feeling of not ‘measuring up’ to God’s bar of ‘righteous prayer health’ (or whatever you want to call it). And if we see God as nothing but a judge, then why not, right?
But that is not God! In order to approach prayer rightly, we must first see God rightly! God is not judging us for lacking prayer. He desires us. He poured His just judgment on Christ instead of us, so He could be with us while still being God – completely just and loving. And we need to get a hold of this first – we need to understand God’s feelings and intentions towards us and for us! And once we grasp His incredible love for us, and come to know that more, we start to feel the want to pray and be in fellowship with Him. We see God for who He is really is – through the lens of grace and not judgment; love and not criticism; desire and not apathy. He wants us. He loves us. Prayer is God’s gift to us and to Himself – not that He needs to hear from us, but because He craves fellowship with us. In Christ, He is our Father, and we are His sons and daughters. And not just a Father in terms of paternal authority, but one who exudes with love, power, passion, strength, and goodness. We come to see God as that something and someone we have always been looking for. And to marvel at the measure of His pursuit of us, we are enraptured and prayer is incited, both steadily, healthily, genuinely, fervently, and continuously.
Therefore, in light of God’s love for us, I charge us (me included) to not pray more because it is the “Christian-acceptable-moral-good-person” thing to do. Forget it. It will only exhaust you, frustrate you, and make you feel fake about yourself and your relationship with God. Rather, the charge is to take a hard, true look at the cross–measuring its exceedingly profound implications of God’s compassion and desire for us such as redemption, sonship, LIFE–and be captivated by it. Respond to it. And then channel your life through its course.
Prayer life without consideration of the Gospel and its implications will run dry. But a prayer life rooted in the foundation of God’s great love and what we have in Christ will thrive and prosper strongly. Indeed, with this in mind: 1) prayer will be important to us, and it will have weight in our lives because we’ll see God’s promises as true, strong, and real. 2) Prayer will have significance and relevance because we will see ourselves the way God sees us. 3) Communication with God empowers us with hope, vision, strength, and gives us a sensitivity for the things of eternity — to not avoid the world, but to engage its affairs with the same force that lit up our own hearts.
Prayer is the manifest expression and response of the redeemed. They have measured the Gospel’s immense effect on their lives (God’s loving grace), and the vibrancy, effectiveness, and genuineness of their prayer lives is directly proportional to their valuing of what Christ has accomplished with consideration of the drastic magnitude of His feat for our behalf.
Prayer is a response to love. A call to fight. A conduit for God’s power. A means for impact. An advancement of the Gospel: Truth, Love, Life.
Jesus died. The veil was TORN. Prayer is that important.
(cont.)
