...praying for others, is that it forces you to be honest with God; assuming your prayers can stray into the "right thing to say, but not said with your heart" category.
I know from reading scripture what my prayers should look like. When I pray, I suppose I subconsciously make sure my prayers are to the best of my ability, proper; that is even if and when my heart isn't exactly contrite the words of my prayers are. Which is pretty sad, since God isn't fooled by lucid and orthodox articulations if the heart that is forming these words isn't tied to them.
So it is that often when I am in prayer, and I say "often" to my own shame, I have had to stop in the middle of saying the right thing, and ask myself whether I actually mean what I am so eloquently saying, or trying to say.
I may learn a thing or two about myself from "Christian living". I may gain insight into the human condition through reading scripture, but I tell you, I learn more about my own sinful condition through prayer than through any other means. Assuming my experience is not a statistical anomaly, but is an experience common to all who spend time each day in prayer, then I can say with some conviction that those who consider intercessory prayer a daily duty and not a "monthly maybe" are probably going to have a far more real assessment of both who they are before God, and who they are in Christ.
You see it is one thing it have the head knowledge that one is accepted by God in the Beloved (Christ), and quite another to come daily before the throne, in the mire of our own imperfect lives, and be forced upon learning some new and horrible truth about the depth of our own depravity, that we are not heard on high because our perfections, but that even in our imperfections we have God's ear "in Christ. The former is the doctrine, the latter is the living it out.
I like to muse about those who spend all their time perfecting a theology they never get around to really living out. Which is not to denigrate the need for study, or the pursuit of a right theology; for without such things one suffers loss; but rather to say that some are inclined to pursue the one for it's own sake, rather than for the sake of living it. You know people like that - they have an opinion on everything theological - and usually it is an extreme opinion, but they lack grace and love and life in expressing it.
Which is not meant as a polemic against such things, rather I mention it because I thought about it while I happened to be typing this out. The link being that the same sort of disconnect is there - an adherence to religion, whether institutionalized, or self-made; that doesn't translate into actual obedient living.
I preached this Sunday on the difference between Saturation and Motivation. I said that scripture teaches us to be saturated with many things - to be in prayer always, to give thanks always, to rejoice always, etc., and that some immature Christians take such commands and after building for themselves a model of what healthy Christianity should look like, they err in imagining such things are intended to motivate them to Christian living.
Let me exposit that for a bit. I mean that they find themselves naturally disobedient towards God, and imagine that this disobedience flows out of some corruption in their faith - a corruption that they have spent, and continue to spend, the lion's share of their energy fruitlessly trying to overcome. The idea is that if they can just over come this deadness in themselves, that new life will spring out - and that obedience will not only become easy, it will be suddenly something they truly and passionately are driven to do.
The problem, I stated in my preaching, is that they imagine that Christians only have to obey God when and if they are properly motivated. They rightly conclude that we are to worship God in spirit and in truth, that we are to be holy, submitted, etc. etc. but conclude that all this comes -after- God zaps us with "grace" - but by grace here, they think some sort of mind altering, and desire altering mystic changing of our being so that our sinful flesh, which has no desire to do God's will whatsoever, is suddenly and powerfully "gagged" or suppressed, leaving only that good desire which is from God, so that we effortlessly begin to obey God and everything is beautiful in the world.
The fact, I said, is that we are God's slaves.
The reason a slave obeys his master is because he is a slave. That's his motivation. Yes we are to be saturated by God, and that saturation will make the burden light - but we don't wait around for the burden to get light; that is, we don't try and psyche ourselves up with the "right" spiritual™ motivation, rather our motivation is that we are God's slaves, and slaves obey.
I know that sounds a little utilitarian, or perhaps even mercenary for some, but it is never the less true. Jesus came to earth, and lived the life of God's slave, having emptied Himself of everything else, setting His own eartly desires aside, He commended Himself to doing the will of the Father while on earth. Are we more free than our Lord and Savior? Did He come to serve, and not be served, so that we could not serve and be served? Where the Master is, there the servant is also.
The point is that rather than looking to our subjective feelings for the "juice" to obey for today, we should be looking to God and saying, just as in the parable, that even should our obedience as slaves become flawless we will only be unprofitable, having done what was expected of us.
A lot of Christians are struck dumb at the thought that God actually expects us to obey Him. We run around "wanting" to obey, but find that it is difficult, so we think there is something wrong with us, and instead of obeying God "because we are slaves" we try to obey God "because we feel like it" - and so embark on a fruitless quest to capture the magical "obedience feeling" that we tell ourselves we lack.
Listen: the lepers were healed as they obeyed. The pattern in scripture is that when you obey, God is merciful. Contrition moves the heart of God. The heart that says, "I will obey the moment you make it easy to do so" is not a contrite heart, it is a rebellious heart, and likely making excuses that, when examined closely, translate into it being God's fault that one isn't obeying. He didn't give me the power, or the strength, or what have you.
God does give power, and strength, but not to those who demand it and stand aloof until they receive it. Surrender your heart to God, obey Him for no other reason than because He is your Master and you are His slave. I mean, you do love God, so this isn't tyrannical, or mean, it is an expression of love on your part - an act of worship - so don't demand that God primes your pump further. He has chosen you, directed his mercy towards you while you were yet a sinner. Called you to Himself and given you faith to believed to the saving of your soul. Were that not enough, He Himself has put His own Spirit into you, as a guarantee until the day that you are redeemed in full. He is with you, and surrounding you on all sides with every opportunity, and has even opened a way in Christ for you to talk to Him directly - a throne that you can come to by grace; so that you have every reason to obey Him, love, gratitude, joy, peace, etc. But you are not called to obey God out of gratitude or love (you should be saturated by these things, not motivated by them), rather you obey because of who you are in Christ - God's slave.
One of the things I wish I had closed on, in that particular sermon, was the thought that every command that God gives; every act of obedience that God demands, is intended for our own joy. God commands us to live in such a way as to bring about our greatest joy. His commands are not self serving, but serve us and our joy. To disobey them is to turn away from life and joy, peace and grace and mercy. It is to invite suffering and sorrow into our existence; and to obey is to draw near to the Creator upon whom our lives depend, and for whom our lives exist. That yes we are slaves, and yes we should learn to obey God "because" we are slaves, looking to no other truth to motivate us unto obedience - but let us not imagine that we are slaves to some cosmic tyrant, but rather as children let us obey our Father for He loves us, and knows what will bring about our greatest joy - the very thing that His commandments are intended to foster.
Anyway, these are just my thought this morning. My hope is that they are edifying.Labels: joy, prayer, slavery |
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