Continuing From Last Week)
AS HAS been stated earlier in this discourse on prayer, that our Lord Jesus Christ warned Christians of four important injunction about prayer directed to God the Father through Jesus the Christ by the Holy Spirit. These include: (a) Not be as the Pharisees – hypocrites who pray standing in a prominent place in the temple or at the corners of streets so that they can be seen by men and accepted as devout man of prayer, (b) To avoid vain repetitions, which have no value in themselves, hence the length of prayers and utterance of many words will not avail of what is prayed for. (c) That prayer must be in secret, and never to be concerned about men or about what such might think or say. (d) He emphasized that what is vital and essential about prayer is not only that Christians while praying should not only shut out all other people, things and thoughts, but that they should shut in themselves with God, focus and concentrate upon God.
These general instructions and warnings to Christians or believers being not sufficient, the Christian now needs further detailed instructions on this vital subject in connection with Christian life. Prayer is the highest activity of the human soul, and therefore is, at the same time the ultimate test of a man’s true spiritual condition. Nothing tells the truth about Christian people as much as prayer life. Every undertaking in Christian life is easier than praying. It is not so difficult to give alms – the natural man knows something about this. A man can possess the spirit of philanthropy or generosity, yet has no knowledge of Christian principles relating there to. Some are borne with the spirit of kindness and willingness to help others, to such people giving of alms is not essentially difficult. Ability to take up duties and refraining from certain ways of life is usually a gift from nature (God). And, God knows it is easier to preach from the pulpit than to pray. Prayer is undoubtedly the ultimate test, because a man can speak to others with greater ease than to speak to God. Ultimately, a man discovers the real condition of his spiritual life when he examines himself in private, when he is alone with God.
There is the danger of a man leading a congregation in a public worship prayer to lose sight and focus of God, and begin to address the congregation rather than the acceptable object of prayer – God. This is unlikely to be the case when a man is alone in the presence of God. And apart from the undesirable playing to the gallery, a man has less to say to God when he is alone with Him than when we are in the presence others. This should not be so, but it is often so. This is the ultimate test that proves a man’s true stand in spiritual life. It is not only the highest activity of the soul, it is the ultimate test of man’s spiritual condition. It is beyond controversy that the more saintly a person is, the more time the person spends in conversation with God. Our Lord Jesus Christ set the example of private prayer before his disciples and to all believers by rising early to go into the mountains to pray. He also did spend whole nights in private prayer. The true Christian must ever wish to know more and more about how to approach God rightly in prayer. The feeling of dissatisfaction with our prayer life and longing to know more and more what it is truly to pray is an encouraging sign and indication of a man’s spiritual growth, and, spiritual growth is stepping in the right direction if the Christian is not to continue to miss the very greatest blessings in Christian life because of not praying aright.
The believer’s need for instructions on how to pray and what to pay for, cannot be overemphasized. In Rom. 8:26 is the assurance that our Father in heaven has made provision for this “… the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession with groanings which cannot be uttered” The word infirmity has the ordinary meanings of “weakness of body and mind; a lack of a particular ability” but this passage refers to general spiritual weakness as the Christian waits for final redemption, and particularly weakness of not knowing what to pray for and how to pray for the needs” Before Apostle Paul disclosed this revelation; our Lord Jesus Christ had given the Christian a model prayer which covers both “the what and the how” of prayer in a most amazing and wonderful manner of what has become known as “The Lord’s Prayer” – a perfect synopsis of His instructions on “how to pray and what to pray for”.
The Lord’s prayer has often been a subject of much needless controversy. There is a school of thought who hold that it is not to be recited at public or any prayer session for various reasons, others object to it on “doctrinal” grounds arguing that it belongs to the realm of “the law” rather than grace and therefore, they claim “has nothing to do with the Christian people” They stumble over the petition with regard to forgiveness, arguing that forgiveness in the prayer is conditional upon the believer forgiving those who wrong him and insist that such is “law and not grace”. The answers to these objections cannot be accommodated here without engaging in a serious digression that could swallow the issues relevant to this discourse. They are therefore omitted for a separate dissertation where and when justice may be done to the topic.
In introducing the Lord Prayer, Saviour Jesus Christ in Matt. 6:9 says ” After this manner therefore prayer ye …” And in Luke 11:2, He say, “When ye pray, say …” This introduction indicates a pattern, not necessarily after identical words – a pattern in content, but not necessarily in form. The context indicates that the Lord’s Prayer is a model in contrast with “vain repetitions” and “much speaking” of heathen prayers, characteristics that have been adopted by Pharisees (see Matt 6:7). Christ’s followers were instructed not to be like them in Matt. 6:8,9. It is interesting to note that the various thoughts expressed in the Lord’s Prayer and often the words themselves in which the thoughts are expressed in the Lord’s Prayer, may be found either in the OT or in Jewish ritual prayers known as “Ha-kaddish”. Inasmuch as the thoughts expressed in the Lord’s Prayer were already current in Jewish prayers in the time of Christ, the parallel may be explained on the basis, that everything good in Judaism, including the sentiments expressed in the prayers originally came from Christ. All that He gave to His people was good, but around these revelations of divine truth, sprang-up a formal worship and growth of human tradition which almost obscured that which was essential to salvation. This was strikingly true of the prayers the rabbis taught the people to recite.
Prayers became lengthy and repetitious, and its sincerity of thought and expression obscured by an impersonal literary form, beautiful in phraseology but too often lacking in sincerity of spirit. In the Lord’s prayer, Jesus rescued from the mass of literary verbiage, that which was essential and restored it to a simple and compact form whose meaning could be comprehended by the most simple soul. Thus, while reflecting, to a certain extent, the prayers of Judaism, the form of the Lord’s prayer is nevertheless an inspired and original prayer in its own right. Its originality is an inheritance of its selection of petitions and its arrangement. It expresses more perfectly the fundamental needs of the human heart than any other prayer.
It is a kind of skeleton prayer that contains all principle of supplication, petition, intercesation etc. the economy of words, the way in which He summarizes it all, is something that surely proclaims the fact that it originates from the Son of God, Himself; and as such man can never do anything greater or higher than to pray along the lines outlined in the Lord’s prayer. The Christian can never exceed it, if he prays truly. It would be fatal to the prayer life of the believer if he should dismiss it as legalism, and imagine that because he is in the dispensation of grace, he has gone beyond recognizing the value of the Lord’s Prayer. This is pure ecclesiastical arrogance and spiritual pride. The true Christian must accept and recognize that this prayer is full of grace. Indeed the law of God is full of grace. Our Lord Jesus Christ in expounding the law of Moses shows that – it is full of the grace of God and that no man can spiritually understand the stipulations, imports and Christian relationship without the law, and, its proper application without the grace of God in his heart.
With the grace of God expounding the law of existence, the law of life, and, the law of human relationship with God in the soul, the believer is led to the right approach to God in his prayer life, eschewing self centeredness and thinking about himself, others and the problems and perplexities besetting him.
The first step in the right approach is “Recollection” that is to pause a while after taking a prayer posture, and recollect that one is in the presence of the Almighty God. The urgency and pressure of the needs notwithstanding. The cares, the anxieties, the troubles or the exigencies, the anguish of the mind, the ‘bleeding heat’ etc etc must be subdued, then followed by a pause – quietness termed “to put the hand upon the lips a while”, then focus upon “Our Father which art in heaven” This inevitably stirs up the latent spirit of high level reverence of the Omnipotence, Omnipresence and Omniscience God – our Father on our part, and strikes the cord to connect with God’s everlasting band of benevolence to us.
To rattle away, making requests from God merely because,, one believes it is good to pray always based on various psychological reasons, is praying amiss abinitio. Some who claim an unusual degree of spirituality think that the high point of true prayer and spiritual relationship with God requires brevity and the so-called “straight to the point business-like-prayer” must note that such has no example throughout the Scripture. Every prayer must begin with invocation – no matter how desperate the circumstance, the pressure and urgency of the need – prayers must begin with worship, that is praises, adoration culminating in invocation of the Divine presence. Examples of this may be found in Dan. 9:16-19; Jer. 32: 7-15 and even in the great High Priestly payer of the Lord Jesus Christ in John 17. And Apostle Paul put this more into perspective in Philippians 4:6 “Be careful for nothing; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God”. (KJV) This emphasizes that thankfulness to God for what He has already done is the solid ground to make new requests.
Before we open our mouths to pray we must remember that “… all things are naked and open unto the eyes of Him with whom we have to do” (Heb. 4:13b) Therefore when we rush into the presence of God and begin to pray for something for ourselves or for the forgiveness of a sin we have committed, we must remember and be conscious of the fact that God being Omniscience has seen and known all about it. This fact is indicated in Psalm 51:6 “Thou desireth truth in the inward parts: and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to known wisdom” This emphasizes that God desires absolute
