Why do Christians pray, and why should they pray? We probably pay a lot more attention to what we are praying than why, and maybe sometimes we don’t pray because we don’t think its necessary. This may happen when we don’t know the why.
There are many reasons (many “whys”) we could think of for why Christians should pray, and here are some:
Do we pray to tell God what we want or need? No, because the Bible tells us[1] that God already knows what we need. He already knows everything, including knowing what we need better than we do, as our Creator.
Do we pray to convince God we are worthy and deserve His audience? No, because on our own we are unrighteous sinners and only deserve separation from God. Jesus has already accomplished everything we need to be able to approach God.
Do we pray so that God will love us more? No, God’s love is based on His own character, not our actions. He can’t love us more, and won’t love us any less, than He does. That He gave His Son to die on the cross for us proves this.
So, why?
Before teaching His disciples how to pray using what we now call the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus said to them: “Pray then like this.”[2] We often think of the Lord’s Prayer as instruction on how to pray, but maybe miss that Jesus told His disciples to pray. It’s something He wants us to do, and regularly.
We pray because Jesus tells us to. “Pray then like this” said Jesus because God desires a relationship with us and a big part of that relationship should be time spent in prayer.
Thomas Becon, an English cleric and Protestant reformer in the 1500’s, wrote this about prayer[3]: “For God neither for our worthiness nor for our unworthiness heareth us; but for his commandment and promise sake. He hath commanded us to pray; therefore ought we to pray. For if we should never pray till we were worthy of ourselves before God to pray, so should we never pray: but we therefore pray, because God hath commanded us so to do. Our worthiness is the humble confession of our unworthiness; and our obedience unto the commandment of God to pray maketh us most worthy.”
Therefore, pray, and often.
“Pray without ceasing” – 1 Thessalonians 5:17
[1] Matthew 6:8, 6:32, Luke 12:30 [2] Matthew 6:9a [3] McKim, Donald K. Everyday Prayer with the Reformers (2020). P. 65.
Does life seem unfair? Have you ever lost a game to a cheater? Or were passed over for a promotion by someone you consider unethical? Or did someone you just don’t like get something you wanted? There are many reasons we might hold a grudge.
Esau, son of Isaac and Rebekah, surely felt that way about his twin brother Jacob. The rivalry of these boys began as early as their birth. Esau was born first, but Jacob came right after, holding on to Esau’s heel.[1] The name Jacob can mean “he takes by the heel,” but also it can mean “he cheats.” The twins even had a rivalry over the favor of their parents: “Isaac loved Esau because he ate of his game, but Rebekah loved Jacob.”[2]
Esau, as the firstborn (barely), was entitled to a double portion of inheritance, but he found that Jacob was still grasping at his heel, as told in Genesis 25:29-34 –
“Once when Jacob was cooking stew, Esau came in from the field, and he was exhausted. And Esau said to Jacob, “Let me eat some of that red stew, for I am exhausted!” (Therefore his name was called Edom[3].) Jacob said, “Sell me your birthright now.” Esau said, “I am about to die; of what use is a birthright to me?” Jacob said, “Swear to me now.” So he swore to him and sold his birthright to Jacob. Then Jacob gave Esau bread and lentil stew, and he ate and drank and rose and went his way. Thus Esau despised his birthright.”
Instead of a double inheritance, desperate Esau got only a meal of stew. There’s more to this story, but the rivalry continued through centuries in a grudge held by Esau’s descendants (the nation of Edom) against Jacob’s descendants (the nation of Israel). The one-chapter Old Testament book of Obadiah is a response to Edom’s schadenfreude[4] over Judah and Israel’s problems.
This short book is worth a read, but it is essentially a condemnation of Edom for their hate of Jacob’s descendants, summarized well in verse 10:
“Because of the violence done to your brother Jacob, shame shall cover you, and you shall be cut off forever.”
Under God’s judgement for a long-held grudge, the nation of Edom no longer existed by Jesus’ time. Therefore, the message of Obadiah is that, even with all the reasons Esau may have had to justify it, his grudge was unjustified. God’s favor is not a function of whether we deserve it, but a function of His mercy given to those who do not deserve it, and He expects us to treat others with the same love and mercy. While God’s love for us is unconditional and purchased for us by Jesus on the cross, Jesus did say in Matthew 6:14 –
“For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”
Mercy is better than any grudge.
[1] Genesis 25:24-26 [2] Genesis 25:28 [3] The words for Edom and red are similar in Hebrew [4] Enjoyment of someone else’s misfortune.
“How small of all that human hearts endure, That part which laws or kings can cause or cure. Still to ourselves in every place consigned, Our own felicity we make or find. With secret course, which no loud storms annoy, Glides the smooth current of domestic joy.”
By setting the clock back this week we get a bit of joy from an extra hour of sleep, an idea originally suggested by Ben Franklin to preserve candles. But the benefit will last only a few days. Similarly, our kings and other rulers may insist they can offer us lasting rest and joy, but their impact on our lives is much smaller than they (and often we) imagine. But…
Jesus said, as recorded in Matthew 11:28-30 – “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.“
May Jesus refresh us for the week and work ahead. Only He can provide the rest and joy we truly desire and need.
I recently had a very strange dream, which occurred (kind of) in the church I went to as a kid. This church, in Washington, D.C., has been around for over 130 years and meets in a stone building and has an amazing pipe organ in the main sanctuary. The appearance and structure of the church communicates permanence and tradition.
In this dream, I was roughly a teenager on one end of the church building but had to meet up with my family at the other end of the building. I started out in a place that seemed like the church I knew, but as I travelled to the other end, things got really bizarre. First, the size of the building seemed to keep expanding and the number of people in it kept multiplying. Soon I noticed that there was a gift shop selling all sorts of kitsch that had nothing to do with religion. I kept going in the same direction, trying to find my family, but the building just kept growing as I went, eventually having many levels, with huge moving walkways and escalators. The dream ended with me still in the church, but this end of it had become a very upscale, very massive, shopping mall. I remember wondering “how did the church turn into this?”
What to make of this? Consider what a shopping mall is. Yes, it’s a large collection of stores in one place, but not a random collection. Those stores were chosen to be as diverse as possible. The more of our desires and wants the mall can meet by having different types of stores, the more economically successful the mall will be, and that’s what matters to the mall operator. People want fancy clothes, jewelry, entertainment, snacks and candy, toys, and many other things. So, a mall can represent our “do whatever you want” culture.
I wonder if the seed of the dream was something I saw on Twitter a few days before: “There are infinite ways to be non-binary.” What they were saying is that not only are there not just two genders, but that we can endlessly create new ones with no limit at all. It’s like a sexual version of the shopping mall, and also a denial that there’s any real right or wrong or that there’s any such thing as an inappropriate desire. But can we really make ourselves into anything we want to be without consequences?
Consider this: no competent computer engineer would tell us that we can just arrange a diverse group of components any way we want and end up with a working computer. The engineer isn’t being intolerant or mean, they just know what it takes to make a computer do what it’s supposed to.
Likewise, when Jesus says “Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few,”[1] He is not being intolerant or mean by saying we can’t do whatever we want to, He just knows that we were designed, what we were designed to do, and also what will ultimately satisfy us.
Christian churches are supposed to teach us how to follow Christ, not tell us to do whatever we want to, but now many churches, just like in my dream, have turned into proverbial shopping malls. In many cases, we’ve forgotten that people are not accidents of random circumstances in nature, and we’ve forgotten that our Creator knows what’s best for us. We’ve decided to pursue “the way that is easy” forgetting that it “leads to destruction.” Too many churches, now including the one I went to in DC, say that Jesus will meet whatever needs we think we have, rather than saying that Jesus knows what we need better than we do; that it’s our idea of need that must be changed.
It’s our idea of need that must be changed
When Jesus said, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life,” the “world” He loves is the one where we’ve come up with infinite ways to reject Him. Where we’ve come up with infinite ways to deny that He made us and knows better than us what’s right and wrong, what “leads to life” and what “leads to destruction.”
When God gave His Son, His sacrifice was sufficient for all sin and can cover all the infinite ways we decide to ignore what’s good for us. Because God loved this world, it’s also true that His people should communicate His love and grace at all times to all people, by word and action. Yet it’s also true that church is not a shopping mall regardless of what people can imagine in their dreams that it should be. The church is called to a higher standard of living, a holy standard informed by our Creator’s knowledge of what works.
So, in these troubling times, pray that people will continue to find Jesus, both within and outside the church and what much of it has become. That God’s people will love holiness, but also love sinners. Pray that we find the way that is hard but leads to life and that God’s church is a beacon calling people to it.
For a time, Moses was the sole judge over Israel, deciding right and wrong in countless cases brought by the people. This was a massive burden and brought him to exhaustion, until his father-in-law Jethro urged Moses to delegate some of the responsibility. Jethro tells Moses to find some able, trustworthy men, and in Exodus 18:22, he says “And let them judge the people at all times. Every great matter they shall bring to you, but any small matter they shall decide themselves. So it will be easier for you, and they will bear the burden with you.” Moses was to act essentially as a court of appeal for hard cases. What kind of “great matter” might Moses get?
Deuteronomy 17:8 might be one example: “if any case arises requiring decision between one kind of homicide and another, one kind of legal right and another, or one kind of assault and another, any case within your towns that is too difficult for you, then you shall arise and go up to the place that the LORD your God will choose.”
What the Bible recognizes here is that the right solution isn’t always obvious. The Bible recognizes that things can get messy. Life isn’t always as black-and-white, right-versus-wrong as we might think. There are complex situations where rights conflict with rights, rather than a simple right versus wrong. Each side of the case – the plaintiff and the defendant – might be at fault.
For example, suppose one person assaulted another without provocation, but in return the other retaliated in an unjustified way. Should both complaints cancel each other out, and no judgement declared either way? Or should the judge enforce the penalty for both crimes independent of each other? If one penalty is greater than the other, should a judge subtract one penalty from the other and enforce the difference on the person with the greater crime? Would that be justice for either person?
Sometimes there aren’t easy answers, even based on God’s perfect, revealed law. All of us are sinful and justice requires we be punished for the times we have violated some kind of legal right, committed come kind of assault, or harmed someone in another way. What solution can untangle all of these competing claims for justice?
The only viable answer is forgiveness, but forgiveness doesn’t come free, or cheap. For our violations against God, the cost of forgiveness was Jesus’ suffering and dying on the cross. For our sins against each other, God demands that we forgive others as we have been forgiven by Him. We are to bear the cross of not only our sins, but the sins of others. Forgiveness is hard because it sometimes means not demanding that our rights be respected. Sometimes it means our sense of justice might be violated. Yet forgiveness is what our Lord demands.
As Jesus said in Matthew 6:14-15, “For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”
Moses may have been able to be the court of appeal for Israel, to bear the burden of every “great matter” of the time, but only Jesus could bear the burden of every matter for all time. He asks us to follow His example, even when we think we have the right to do otherwise.
Driving Toward the Morning Sun 