A Misconception About Prayer
One of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God. When morning came, he called his disciples to him and chose twelve of them, whom he also designated apostles.
Luke 6:12-13 (NIV)
We mistakenly believe sometimes that prayer is a failsafe that prevents all threats from our lives. We believe falsely that prayer will make all our paths smooth and nothing will hit our lives but success and prosperity and progression. Prayer should be able to manipulate events and prevent the painful and the disappointing from taking place, shouldn’t it?
In Luke 6, we read that Jesus went up on a mountainside to pray, and He spent the entire night in prayer. I have no doubt that among the many things He prayed about, He asked the Lord to guide His selection of the men He would call as His apostles.
And yet, the very next morning, when Jesus chose the Twelve from among the disciples, we see that Judas the traitor made the team.
According to our conventional wisdom, it seems like the prayer of Jesus should have led Him to spot, reveal, and remove Judas from His selection in order to prevent betrayal and hurt and pain. But you and I know that life doesn’t unfold that way.
If Jesus prayed all night, and Judas still made the team, what does that tell us about the potential answers to our prayers?
Now, of course, Jesus knew that Judas would eventually betray Him, but Jesus was surrendered to the will of His father. The pain, the suffering, the feeling of abandonment, the insults, the beatings, the bloodshed—and yes, even the betrayal of His close friend Judas— were part of the complete submission Jesus demonstrated to God, as summarized in His simple prayer at Gethsemane: “Nevertheless, not My will but Your will be done.”
Here’s what I want you to come away with today. You can’t give up on your prayers because things don’t turn out the way you expect them. Don’t weaken your confidence in prayer because along with it comes some issues and battles that you thought your prayers would have eliminated. Don’t walk away from prayer because after praying you still get attacked or struggle.
Sometimes you can pray, and Judas still ends up on your team, so to speak.
Prayer is not for guiding outcomes. Prayer is for grounding our lives in the will of God.
The Right Comparison
Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
Matthew 5:48 (NIV)
Spiritual growth is not me comparing myself to other people and thinking that as long as I’m one step better than them, then that makes me holy. No, spiritual growth is the acceptance that I need to live better because I’m comparing my life to the sinlessness of Jesus.
He invites us to draw close to Him so the guilt can be removed from our lives and we can then reach for the mark of His perfection.
When I become more aware of Jesus’s perfection, the more it gives me a mark to press towards. I should not be trying to live my life better than other people. That’s the wrong comparison. We should be trying to live our lives closer to the perfection of Jesus, who every day bids us to come closer in faith.
Jesus is perfect in all His ways. He is sinless and He is sovereign. There is no fault in Him, nothing ever to excuse, nothing ever to overlook. He is the metric we should use to assess our spiritual health.
The right comparison is not against the lives of others, but against the sovereign life of Jesus.
Here’s why. When I stand next to the sinlessness of Jesus, it makes me want to talk to Him about my shortcomings. He makes me want to deal with my issues. He makes me want to get the guilt up off of my life. He makes me want to chase the power of a repentant life.
This is why, incidentally, I love playing golf with guys who are better than me. It’s why I like talking to people who are smarter than me. It’s why I like hanging around with people who are more successful than me. Because it makes me want to get better and never settle for my current skill level.
And every day I walk with Jesus, He makes me want to be better. I love spending time with Jesus because His sinlessness makes me want to reach for perfection.
Can you relate?
The Discipline of Repentance
One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: “Aren’t you the Messiah? Save yourself and us!” But the other criminal rebuked him. “Don’t you fear God,” he said, “since you are under the same sentence? We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.” Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.
Luke 23:39-42 (NIV)
There is a spiritual discipline that is seldom mentioned, let alone preached and practiced. This discipline is not embraced by most Christians. They try to keep it distant and ignore it. They don’t want to bring it up in conversation. It’s not something many Christians are excessively proud of when compared to the other spiritual disciplines. They love talking about prayer and how the Lord has spoken to them and what the Holy Spirit has revealed. But this discipline stays at a conversational distance.
I am talking about the discipline of repentance.
Repentance is what we see from the criminal on the cross. He thinks differently after being changed by Jesus’s presence, His innocence, and His holiness. The criminal has a change of mind about his own life while hanging next to the sinless Christ. He becomes sorry for what he has done and how he has lived, and he wants to head his life in an opposite direction. He wants to change. He is repenting.
He went from mocking the Lord to being awakened to Jesus’s lordship. He becomes acutely aware of the deep trenches that his life has fallen into, and in the precious little time he has remaining, he rebukes the other mocking criminal and he asks Jesus to remember him when He comes into His kingdom.
There’s nothing more powerful to me in all the Scriptures than to hear Jesus when he says these words: “Today, you’re going to be with me in paradise.”
If repentance is confession of sin to God and changing mind and heart…
If repentance is the spiritual conviction to live one’s life differently from the way one has been living it…
If repentance is the shift from living outside God’s will to living in God’s will…
…then the question we should be asking ourselves is:
When is the last time you’ve stepped into that refreshing?
When is the last time you took advantage of the access to that blessing?
When is the last time you have positioned yourself to receive that liberating gift?
When is the last time you repented?
Relinquishing Control
In the multitude of my anxieties within me, your comforts delight my soul.
Psalm 94:19 (NKJV)
The New International Version of the Bible translates the above verse this way: “When anxiety was great within me, your consolation brought me joy.”
The Psalmist feels a lot like we feel while standing in a context where it appears that evil is all around and in control. He is praying to God because he can’t control what’s happening around him and he is wondering when God is going to assert His strength and power.
By the end of the verse, however, the Psalmist stops trying to shape events and control environments. Instead, he relinquishes this need to control things and simply finds a comfortable place in God.
When we realize that trying to control everything only reveals how much we can’t control everything, then we can remember we have a covenant with God. This covenant comes with the relationship we have with Him. We accept His salvation only to discover the multitude of fringe benefits that are opened up to us: eternal security, divine protection, daily provision, the ability to ask and receive, battles fought for us, and the list goes on.
One of those benefits is the assurance that God is in control.
So when you feel like you have lost control of your circumstances and situation, go with it—and rest in the covenant you have with God. You will know that you have found that place when you experience the comfort and consolation that the Psalmist describes.
The Generosity of God
A Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.’
Luke 10:33-35 (NIV)
One of the things that hits me in the story of the Good Samaritan is not just the Samaritan’s compassion, but his overflowing generosity. He finds a man on the road stripped of his clothes, beaten, battered, and left for dead—and immediately he goes over to him. He gives this injured man his wine and oil, his bandages, his donkey, his money, his concern, his time, his care, and his pledge.
He makes a serious investment by promising the innkeeper that repayment of any additional debt will be covered by himself. He doesn’t even put a limit on the credit account. He tells the innkeeper, “Keep the tab open.”
The Samaritan makes this man’s wellbeing his primary concern, and spares no expense in bringing him back to a place of wholeness.
That’s what God does for you and me every day. He keeps the tab open. But He doesn’t have to pay the bill later. He’s covered the expenses in total with His Son’s blood, from which we make daily withdrawals so that our sins can be washed away.
Talk about a reason to rejoice! Talk about a reason to shout! Talk about a reason for authentic worship! Every day, you spend the whole day making withdrawals on God’s account, because God put the entirety of His creditworthiness on the line for you.
What a generous God He is!
