Thoughts on Prayer (4)

"The Pharisee stood and prayed.... ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other men—extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I possess.... The tax collector... would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me a sinner!’ I tell you, the tax collector went down to his house justified rather than the Pharisee; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.” (Luke 18:13-14)

• Prayer requires humility; in other words, a rejection of hypocrisy and/or self-righteousness. Hypocrisy opposes humility because it proclaims God's law but doesn't apply it to self. Self-righteousness opposes humility because it both proclaims God's law while believing that self has kept God's law. Christ's point about the Pharisee in Luke 18:13-14 wasn't whether he was a hypocrite and/or self-righteous. The point was that everyone who exalts himself will be humbled.

• God urges us to pray His promises back to Him so that it develops relational dependency. The Father works, the Son wills, and the Spirit guides. This ensures that we will learn to want and ask for that which He has already promised. Paul says, "Abba Father" (Romans 8:15), because he has learned the courage of approaching the throne of God to ask, with trust and respect, for what has already been promised.

  
  

• Praying, whether in spiritual infancy or adulthood, ensures God will answer to show great and hidden truths that had not been known before, and that you will be delivered out of all your troubles. (Jeremiah 33:3, Psalm 34:17) No ifs ands or buts about it. Remember though that "great and hidden truths" are in Christ alone, because He is the deliverer from "all your troubles", which ultimately stem from the hell you've already escaped in Him.