Thursday, October 20, 2022

 

Thursday, October 20, 2022


Psalms 114; 115

Ezra 9

1 Peter 4:3-11


Discipline yourselves for the sake of your prayers.


It should be the aspiration of all of us to reach the blessed prayer life. The prayer life, or, open communication with God, is not to be assumed as a basic human right. It comes in different forms, at different levels, changing in different seasons. Jesus was, first and foremost, concerned about His relationship with His heavenly Father. His mission on earth was to bring us into that same relationship (if not on an equal level than offer the equal opportunity to begin the journey).


Prayers themselves are different: sometimes we are to stand in the breach between God’s people and God’s righteous wrath. Take Ezra; the people deserved destruction but he, like Moses before and Jesus after him, interceded specifically on behalf of the people, petitioning God to deliver mercy rather than justice. Sometimes it is praise; take today’s Psalms. Sometimes it is conversational: any Christian who has been out for a walk by themselves and seen an interesting insect during the trip most definitely has experienced conversational prayer with God. The wonder and delight of a child in the playground that his Father has made for him delivers the Christian a true glimpse of that heavenly joy and peace promised by Jesus Christ.


Peter is serious about our prayer life. His desire is that we all be in individual dialogue with God. He follows by exhorting us to love one another “above all”: this suggests that the relationship between the individual Christian and God is supremely expressed in the Christian’s relationship with fellow believers. Prayer is the wellspring from which we draw the Living Water of Christ. It is the plug in the wall we need to reconnect to regularly to keep running. It is the closet from which we draw clean clothes every morning, and it is our bed at night in which we climb when we are sleepy. Sometimes our prayer life is thick and strong: when we sit down in the morning for dedicated prayer time, God speaks prepositionally with specific instructions. Sometimes we get lazy, or discouraged, and the only way we hear God speak is through glazed eyes as we glance at the Bible readings for the day. Having experienced both extremes, I promise you: God always answers, one way or another. He doesn’t have a tantrum when us children get slack in calling our Father. He loves us, and would much rather speak properly with us as adults, but even when we stop calling and just text for awhile, He will always be happy to respond with love and miracles. But it is best to be disciplined, to speak and be spoken to in return. This truly is the kingdom of God within us; our bodies the new Temple, the renewal of our minds conformed into the image of God.


“Sweet hour of prayer! sweet hour of prayer!
thy wings shall my petition bear
to him whose truth and faithfulness
engage the waiting soul to bless.
And since he bids me seek his face,
believe his word, and trust his grace,
I'll cast on him my every care,
and wait for thee, sweet hour of prayer!”





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