Prayer and how you see God

Is God like a soft-drink machine, dispensing drinks when you insert the right amount of money?

Is he so far above you that you're sure he doesn't hear you - or even see you?

Is he like an angry parent, disgusted with you and bound to deny what you ask of him?

If you see him any of these ways, you may have trouble opening the door to God through prayer.

Last week, I wrote that how you see yourself will influence how you pray.

It is equally true that how you see God will affect your prayers.

More than a century and a half ago, the great British preacher Charles Spurgeon declared that you should approach God with awe and respect while rejoicing that he loves to pour good things over you.

In The Power of Prayer in a Believer's Life, Spurgeon says the writer of Hebrews gives a good picture of God and prayer in chapter 4, verse 16: "Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need."

Here are Spurgeon's main points in my words:

• When we pray, we are entering "the courts of the royalty of heaven".  God is the awe-inspiring king seated on a throne.  We need to bow before him in reverence.
• We need to submit to him and his will.
• We should enter his presence joyfully and thankfully because he has called us into his presence.
• We should stand before him confidently and with great expectations because he is king and he offers grace to his loved ones.
• We can expect grace and mercy from God even though we sense our unworthiness.  "It is in Him (Christ) that God is able to dispense grace to the most guilty of mankind."

Spurgeon eloquently expands on these and other thoughts in his article.

But his point is simple: God is a stupendous king - marvelous to behold - who loves us and offers us good gifts.  Our task is to recognize that what he wants for us is far better than anything we could ask or imagine.

As we seek what he wants for us, we can be sure we will receive his mercy and grace.

Prayer and how you see yourself

How you see yourself influences how you pray.

Perhaps I should say: How you pray depends on how you think God sees you.

The writer to the Hebrews says that believers should approach God's throne with confidence (Hebrews 4:16).  But you will not be confident if you think God has a poor opinion of you.

I must say I have done more than my share of grovelling before God, expecting him to turn his face away because of my many sins.

In fact, I have often approached the Lord in the same way the prodigal son did in the great story Jesus told in Luke 15:11-32.

The son had wasted the inheritance he received from his father and returned home thinking himself unworthy and ready to ask to be a servant instead of a son. But the father had been waiting for his son and ran forward and hugged him even before he could get out his request.  And the father lavished clothes and rings upon him and threw a "welcome home" party for him.

The prodigal son story is all about how much God loves us and pours out his grace upon us even though we are not worthy.

It is right to be humble but wrong to feel we are unworthy once we have become God's children through faith.  Once we put our faith in Christ, God sees Jesus when he looks at us - he has forever forgiven us our sins.

In his book Victory Over the Darkness, Neil Anderson has written a wonderful list of scriptures talking about who we are in Jesus Christ.  Here are a few of the points Anderson makes: We are God's children; we have been justified; we have been forgiven all our sins; we are free from condemnation; we are citizens of heaven;  and we can approach God with freedom and confidence.

I am conscious I still sin.  I need to confess to God that I have sinned.

But then I am free to come before God and pray with faith and boldness.

Like the father in the prodigal son story, he's anxious to hear me and lavish good things upon me.

Knowing that truth brings life and hope and power to my prayers.

"Blessed be your name"

How often do I bless the name of the Lord?

I thank God for good things from time to time - my family, the comfortable life I lead, the gift of everlasting life.

But do I consciously bless God in hard times?  Sometimes - with difficulty.

I was reminded of this while I was singing Matt Redman's song "Blessed by your name" at our church's Sunday service this morning.

I was particularly struck by the words: "Every blessing you pour out, I'll turn back to praise."  Every blessing.

It made me think about how often I forget to think about God's blessings.  The greatest blessing is Jesus himself and my relationship with him.  But he has poured out many other blessings, too.

What I love about Matt Redman's song are the words that follow the ones I mentioned:

"When the darkness closes in, Lord, still I will say: 'Blessed be the name of the Lord, blessed be your name.'"

Yes, even in "on the road marked with suffering," as Redman says, we must bless the name of the Lord.

What a difference praising God has made in the lives of Christians over the centuries.  And what a testimony to those who don't know Jesus.

I love Psalm 103 where David talks about the blessings of God.

Quite apart from earthly blessings, David speaks of the eternal benefits of God's love for us.  Here are some he mentions:

• He forgives our sins;
• He heals our diseases;
• He redeems us;
• He crowns us with love and compassion;
• He satisfies our desires with good things;
• He is slow to anger and abounding in love; and
• His love for us is so great it can't be measured.

As David says in verse 17, God's love for us is from "everlasting to everlasting".  There is no end to it.

I bless your name, O God.

The power of praying neighbours

When neighbours band together to pray, great things can happen in their neighbourhoods.

Alvin VanderGriend, author of Shine His Light, that praying neighbours in one Grand Rapids, Michigan neighbourhood saw people get off drugs, two unemployed women find jobs, a father giving up drinking, a Bible study launched, a father healed after a heart attack, a woman miraculously healed after an illness, someone delivered from an evil spirit, and five people coming to know Christ.  All in one year!

In a March 23, 2014 blog post, I referred to the "pray, care, share" approach where Vander Griend recommends that neighbours get together in "Houses of Prayer" and pray for their neighbours, care for them in acts of kindness, and share the gospel.

In this post, I'd like to touch on the reasons he offers for the power of praying neighbours.  Here are some:

• Prayer releases God's grace and power into a neighbourhood.  Vander Griend says this is like God having an "infinite reservoir of blessings" and a pipeline connects each house in the neighbourhood with this reservoir.  There's a faucet on that pipeline to our neighbours and that faucet is opened by prayer.
• God gets people's attention when he answers prayer. When amazing things happen in answer to prayer, people sit up and take notice.
• Houses of Prayer establish a long-term presence in a community.  People who live in a neighbourhood for a long time become aware of the needs of others in their area.  They are there to pray, care and share as people go through difficult times.
• Houses of Prayer target whole households.  They pray for whole families, not just individuals.  They are concerned about family relationships.
• Houses of Prayer involve whole families.  Everyone in our families - children as well as adults - can be involved in this prayer movement.  Children can be turned on to the power of prayer as they join their parents in praying for others.
• Members of Houses of Prayer demonstrate God's love in practical ways as they relate to their neighbours.
• Houses of Prayer effectively harness the power of the church's lay people.  As Vander Griend points out, there are many more lay people than full-time staff in churches.

These are strong arguments for praying and working together as believers in our neighbourhoods to reach those who don't know Jesus.

Lord, live your life through me!

Are you ready to say: "Lord, live your life through me"?

Our pastor said this morning we should consider praying that way rather than always asking God what he can do for us.

A friend said immediately afterwards that is a "scary" prayer.  And it is.

But it is a powerful prayer - and, as our pastor said, an effective prayer.  God uses people who think like that.

Indeed, it is an exciting and wonderful way to live.  In essence, that prayer is a declaration that we will do what God wants us to do - no matter what.

The apostles and new believers in the New Testament lived that way.

In Acts 4:23-31, the young Christians prayed for courage to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ boldly - just after Peter escaped miraculously from prison.  They did not ask for protection against persecution.  They knew that God wanted them to spread the good news despite the threat of imprisonment and death.

Paul obeyed God's leading and visions wherever he went.  As our pastor noted, the apostle said in Galatians 2:20:

"My old self has been crucified with Christ.  It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.  So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me." 

Trust is the essence of Paul's life.  Rather than worrying, he took everything to God in prayer (Philippians 4:6).  He was ready to suffer (2 Timothy 2:3) because he saw himself as a soldier in a great cause, the greatest cause in the world - advancing the kingdom of God.

There is blessing in doing what God wants whether it is helping someone in need or sharing the gospel or praying according to his will.  I have had a taste of these blessings as I am sure you have.  More often, though, I have gone my own way.

In his book The Holy Spirit: The Key to Supernatural Living, Bill Bright, the founder of Campus Crusade for Christ, wrote that he began every day with this prayer:

"I invite you to walk around in my body, to love with my heart, to speak with my lips and to think with my mind."

That means surrendering everything about myself to God and letting him live his life through me.

Bless the Lord

Our pastor suggests we should turn our prayers around by blessing God rather than pounding on the doors of heaven, asking blessings for ourselves.

I believe he is right that we believers are more likely to plead with God for ourselves rather than worshiping the Lord.

Daniel Henderson, author of Transforming Prayer, says that seeking God's face first can make all the difference in the world in our prayer lives.  That doesn't mean that we should neglect our needs but that our requests should flow out of worshiping the Lord.

Henderson gives the example of Lori, a new believer at his church, who went on a three-day prayer retreat with women from the church - a retreat with no agenda.  She knew nothing about the Bible and almost nothing about hymns and worship songs.

"She learned how to open the Bible and worship God as the majestic, sovereign and mighty One who is worthy of praise.  She saw him take hurting people and give them peace, hope, and joy.

"After experiencing the deep, deep love of Christ that weekend, her life has never been the same."

Henderson's approach - flowing from the Bible - is to allow prayer retreats of this kind to flow naturally from people spontaneously sharing worship songs or hymns or passages of scripture.  The focus is always first on God and who he is and what he has done.

People may respond to these scriptures or worship songs by praising the Lord and then confessing sin or making prayer requests.  It all begins with worshiping God.

As Henderson describes it, this process is uplifting because the focus is first on God and his greatness, love and mercy.

King David begins Psalm 103 with these words:

"Praise the Lord, O my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name.  Praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits."

As Henderson says, the aim of this worship-based prayer time is to open yourself to "the scriptures and your soul in Spirit-led communion with Christ and allowing him to set the agenda for every prayer time you enjoy".

Then, you will know what God wants in your life.  And that is the road to powerful and effective prayer.

God can

In prayer, one of the biggest mountains to cross is unbelief.

Like many others, I often get caught up with how impossible a situation looks.  Surely, God can't fix that, I think.

But God can.

Bill Hybels, author of Too Busy Not to Pray and pastor of Willow Creek Community Church in the Chicago area, confronted this problem in his prayer life many years ago.

He says that he was sitting in a small room overlooking Lake Michigan one summer when he realized what was wrong with his prayer life - lack of faith in God's ability to answer our prayers. 

"I decided I didn't want to stay where I was, for all practical purposes disbelieving God's omnipotence," he says in his book.  "So I launched an assault on my own lack of conviction."

He began with God's power over nature, looking at Bible passages such as God parting the waters for the Israelites to cross the Red Sea and the Jordan River, feeding the Israelites with manna and birds in the wilderness, producing water out of a rock, and Jesus stilling the great waves of the Sea of Galilee when they threatened to swamp the boat he and the disciples were in.

He read and reread these passages and others before turning to God's power to deal with impossible circumstances.  He considered Peter's miraculous delivery in prison by an angel when he was on the point of being executed (Acts 12).  Even the believers who welcomed him back were astonished at this answer to their prayers.

Finally, he looked at God's power to change lives.  He read about shy Moses becoming a powerful leader, Pharaoh relenting and letting the Israelites leave Egypt, the conversion of the persecutor Saul, and Peter's transformation into a courageous, outspoken leader after Jesus' ascension into heaven.

He recalled the words in Hebrews 13:8 that "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever".  He reasoned that if God is unchanging, he can do today what he did in Bible times.

I think we all need to look back at what God has already done - in our lives as well as in the Bible.  This can give us new energy and conviction as we pray.