Praying to the glory of God, by Rev. Dr. Micah McCormick

Praying to the glory of God

by Rev. Dr. Micah McCormick

(New Hyde Park Baptist Church, NY)

Praying to the glory of God (part 1)

The simple truth is that most Christians, myself included, don’t pray as we should. So even as I write three posts on the subject of prayer, I’m speaking to myself as well as to any readers. My three posts will answer three questions regarding prayer (why do we pray, how do we pray, and when do pray?).

Why do we pray?

Calvin rightly declares, “Words fail to explain how necessary prayer is, and in how many ways the exercise of prayer is profitable” (Institutes of the Christian Religion, 3.20.2). I will simply highlight three reasons from Scripture.

1. Because God commands us to pray

Such a reason sounds simplistic but we need to feel the weight of God’s Word. Jesus gives the following instructions in Matthew 6:1-9: “And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. . . . But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. Pray then like this . . . .” Notice how often Jesus says, “when you pray . . . .” The assumption is not that his followers might pray but that they certainly will pray. In 1 Timothy 2:1 Paul urges that “supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people.” And most Christians are familiar with Paul’s simple exhortation to the Thessalonians, “Pray without ceasing” (1 Thess 5:17).

Of course Scripture is replete with commands to pray and examples of prayer. But if we take these commands seriously for what they are—commands—it should change our attitude. Suppose you asked a Christian friend how he was doing and he replied, “You know, I’m doing pretty well. I have been struggling a little bit with stealing things, but this week I only stole two things.” You would likely be stunned. How could someone so blatantly disregard not only civil law but the command of God himself? And yet how easy it is for us to let a week go by with minimal (if any) prayer time and to think little of it.

Samuel had a right assessment of prayer: “For the Lord will not forsake his people, for his great name’s sake, because it has pleased the Lord to make you a people for himself. Moreover, as for me, far be it from me that I should sin against the Lord by ceasing to pray for you” (1 Sam 12:22-23). Failure to pray is a sin against the command of our Lord and we should view it as such.

2. Because we are needy people

One of the beautiful things about Christianity is that the God of the Bible is not simply a distant sovereign who gives orders from afar. He is a personal God who enters into relationships with humans. He is a warm and loving Father who invites his children to pray. And we should cry out to Him, for we are weak and needy people.

The bottom line is that we need God for everything. one of the reasons we should pray without ceasing is that we should always be depending on God. The Son of God upholds the universe by the word of his power (Heb 1:3). If he withdrew his sustaining breath for one second creation would crumble beneath itself. We should not be so misguided as to think that we pray because God is a very needy God who likes to feel wanted. God is not “served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything” (Acts 17:25). If God were hungry, he wouldn’t tell us, because the world and all its fullness are his! (Ps 50:12). Rather, he reminds us that we are the needy ones.

Specifically, we need God to fill us with joy. The Christian life is filled with tribulation, but it is not a life in which God has called us merely to hang in there. Jesus says that he came that we might have life and have it more abundantly (John 10:10). He tells his disciples, “Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full” (John 16:24). True joy is a fruit of the Spirit (Gal 5:22)—it is not natural but supernatural. It is not something we can conjure up on our own. We need the Spirit to produce this fruit in our lives. How wonderful then that God gives the Spirit to those who ask him: “And I tell you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” (Luke 11:9-13)

To those of you brothers and sisters in Christ who deeply struggle with joy, let me gently ask you: how much do you pray? It is easy to turn to other good things when we feel discouraged. I freely admit I love listening to John Piper sermons. I love to read John Frame. I happen to go to a church where I hear Tom Schreiner and Bruce Ware teach on a regular basis—what a privilege. And yet, Jesus doesn’t say, “Learn under gifted teachers and your joy will be full.” He calls us to pray.

If believers at times struggle with joy, think of unbelievers. Although there are certain kinds of fleeting pleasures in the cares of this world, at the end of the day those who are without God have no hope. People need God to save them. Jesus said, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.” (Luke 10:2). It’s not wrong to pray out of compassion for the lost, to pray that God would send out the gospel message through his people and that enemies of the cross would be reconciled to God. This motivation was Paul’s heartbeat: “Brothers, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for them [Israel] is that they may be saved” (Rom 10:1).

3. Because God is sovereign

The same Paul who prayed earnestly for the lost is the same Paul who declared that “it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy” (Rom 9:16). Isn’t the sovereignty of God actually a discouragement to prayer? The resounding answer is no. God’s sovereignty is actually a reason to pray. Think about it this way—if God couldn’t change human hearts, what good would there be in praying? Why would we pray if the final decision hinged on the autonomous will of humans? Furthermore, think about how sinful and rebellious people are. Don’t many of us have friends and family who seem beyond the pale of conversion? We take great hope and courage in knowing that God can change the vilest of hearts by his grace. After all, he changed ours.

In one sense prayer, like preaching, is part of God’s ordained means of salvation. We can never ultimately guarantee conversions by our prayers, but in his mysterious wisdom God wants us to cry out to him in order that he might answer us! Prayer is not a chore that we do drudgingly as a child who knows bad things might happen if he doesn’t do his chores. In some ways prayer is like being on a championship team (I will refrain from naming any specific teams lest I alienate some readers). We know God’s program of redemption will be victorious with or without us, but it should give us great joy to participate.

Ultimately we pray because prayer glorifies God. God gets the glory when his children joyfully obey him and when he helps them in their weakness. “Call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me” (Ps 50:15). We pray acknowledging his sovereignty over not only human hearts but all of life: “From him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen” (Rom 11:36).

Praying to the glory of God (part 2)

How do we pray?

In his book, A Call to Spiritual Reformation: Priorities from Paul and His Prayers, D. A. Carson observes, “One of the foundational steps in knowing God, and one of the basic demonstrations that we do know God, is prayer—spiritual, persistent, biblically minded prayer. . . . We have learned to organize, build institutions, publish books, insert ourselves into the media, develop evangelistic strategies, and administer discipleship programs, but we have forgotten how to pray” (p.16).

Unfortunately Carson’s assessment is all too true. Christian churches, particularly in the West, are full of believers with anemic prayer lives. Part of the reason we struggle with prayer is that we don’t know what to pray for. We find that our minds wander and we stumble through the same clichéd refrains. Jesus’ own disciples perhaps struggled in similar ways, for they asked Jesus, “Lord, teach us to pray” (Luke 11:1). Note how Jesus begins his exemplary prayer: “Father, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. . .” (11:2). Jesus is first concerned with God’s glory, not with the temporal circumstances of this life. To see a similar lack of emphasis on temporal circumstances we can turn to one of Paul’s prayers,

“We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, because of the hope laid up for you in heaven. Of this you have heard before in the word of the truth, the gospel, which has come to you, as indeed in the whole world it is bearing fruit and growing—as it also does among you, since the day you heard it and understood the grace of God in truth, just as you learned it from Epaphras our beloved fellow servant. He is a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf and has made known to us your love in the Spirit. And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God. May you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy, giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins” (Col 1:1-14).

1. We should pray with a thankful spirit

Paul says it rather plainly: “We always thank God . . . when we pray for you” (v. 3). Elsewhere he instructs the Philippians, “do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God” (Phil 4:6). Even when Paul is prepared to exhort churches and rebuke believers for sin, he begins with thanksgiving to God for them (1 Cor 1:4).

Looking at our own lives, are we more apt to criticize others or to pray for them? Is our first thought, “Why did John do that?” or “Father, thank you for the work of grace you are doing in John’s life.” Is our first word to a friend, “Susan you won’t believe what Mary said the other day . . . ,” or “Susan I’m so thankful for you friendship—would you pray with me that God would help us to love others more, particularly those who frustrate us?” In Colossians 1, it is after Paul thanks God for the Colossians’ faith and love that he moves on to supplication for them (notice the “and so” of v. 9).

2. We should pray with a broad vision

Paul tells the Colossians that he always thanks God for them ever since he heard of their faith in Christ (1:3-4). Again in 1:9 he says “from the day he heard we have not ceased to pray for you . . . .” Apparently Paul did not personally know the Colossian Christians. Rather, their faith in Christ had been reported to him. Yet despite the fact that they were not in one sense his children in the faith as other congregations were (e.g., 1 Thess 2:7), he still cared deeply for them and regularly prayed for them.

How often do you pray for those you don’t know? If you’re like me, you tend to want to pray exclusively for people in your own family and your own close friends. But such a narrow vision doesn’t square up to what we find in Scripture. Life is about God; it’s not primarily about our own individual lives and petty concerns. God is doing a mighty work of redemption in the world, and our prayers should reflect that fact.

Begin with your own church. Do you pray regularly for those in your own church that you might not know particularly well, if at all? one helpful way to correct such short-sightedness is to pray through a page of your church’s membership directory every day (if such a directory is available). Now consider other churches in your city—do you pray that God would bless them and cause the face of Christ to shine on them, and that they too would experience fruitfulness? Publications like Operation World and Voice of the Martyrs are very helpful in informing believers about what is going on all over the world, particularly frontier missions. If we aren’t careful, “our prayers may be an index of how small and self-centered our world is” (Carson, Spiritual Reformation, 98).

3. We should pray with redemptive concerns on our hearts

Paul thanks God for the Colossians, not that their physical health is okay but that they have faith in Christ and love for all the saints. In other words, they have embraced the gospel of Jesus Christ and that gospel is bearing spiritual fruit in their lives. They are redeemed children of God whose lives bear the marks of redemption. In case there was any doubt of this emphasis Paul goes on to say explicitly that the gospel has come and is bearing fruit (v. 6). This gospel entrance leads Paul to his supplications for the Colossians.

Paul prays that the Colossians would be filled with a knowledge of God’s will (v. 9). Often when Christians today here the phrase “God’s will,” their minds immediately jump to circumstantial questions—who should I marry, where should I work, or where should I live? But to be quite honest, these types of concerns don’t appear to be at the center of Paul’s heart for the Colossians. Normally in Scripture the concept of the “will of God” refers either to God’s sovereign control over all things (Eph 1:11; Col 1:1) or his moral desires for our lives, his commands (1 Thess 4:3; 5:18). In v. 9 the latter emphasis is perhaps more in view since Paul goes on to pray that the Colossians would bear spiritual fruit and increase in good works (vv. 10-11). However, it is important to remember that without God’s sovereign grace at work in our lives we would never obey him. God has ordained that we should walk in good works (Eph 2:10).

We should pray for the lost that they would be converted to Christ, but we should also pray for the redeemed, that their lives would bear more and more the true marks of redemption. And notice that in this prayer Paul does not mention any special concerns he has about the Colossians. He doesn’t enumerate a list of heinous sins. The Colossians appear to be doing rather well spiritually, and yet Paul prays that they would continue to grow. We are prone to praying for the desperate cases, trying to use the garden hose of our prayers to run from one fire to the next. But Paul reminds us that blooming flowers continue to need water—even spiritually vibrant believers need prayer.

Paul concludes his prayer by reminding the Colossians that they have redemption in Christ (v. 14). Ultimately we pray with a view to God’s glory. God is the one who receives thanks, not the Colossians. He redeems us; we don’t redeem ourselves. Believers are strengthened with God’s power—he is the one who breaks the reign of sin and enables people to bear fruit for him. Since God’s glorious gospel is bearing fruit (v. 6), the believer in the gospel will (super)naturally be bearing fruit (v. 10).

If we are truly people of the Word, we must continue to let the Word shape our prayers.

Praying to the glory of God (part 3)

When should we pray?

Such a question sounds a bit strange when pitted with other more natural prayer questions like why and how. But I ask this question in order to prompt specific reflection on planning to pray. We can speak in platitudes about the importance of prayer, the necessity of prayer, and the content of prayer. But unless we take definite steps toward actually spending time in prayer, we are likely to continue to let prayer slip into the background of our lives. Of course we should take seriously the Bible’s injunction to “pray without ceasing” (1 Thess 5:17). We should seek to cultivate a spirit of prayerfulness in our lives. In one sense an answer to the question of when is whenever we can. But I wish to point out three further and more specific answers.

1. When we gather with the body of Christ

We rightly see Peter’s dramatic rescue from prison in Acts 12 as a miraculous deliverance from God. And yet we often fail to realize that something preceded his deliverance: “earnest prayer for him was made to God by the church” (v. 5). When Peter escapes, he goes to the house of Mary, “where many were gathered together and were praying” (v. 12). Lest we think churches only prayed together in desperate circumstances, we read earlier in Acts that this was a regular pattern—believers “devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of breaking of bread and the prayers” (2:42).

Prayer is to be a corporate exercise. Paul writes 1 Timothy in order to give instructions about “how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, a pillar and buttress of the truth” (1 Tim 3:14-15). In this letter Paul instructs, “First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people” (2:1). The assumption in 1 Corinthians is likewise that corporate prayer is taking place (1 Cor 11:2-16; 14:14-16).

I was recently talking to a friend of mine who was expressing concern about the lack of passion in his church. A few days later I spoke to him and said, “Hey, I’m going to pray with some people from your church—you should come.” He responded, “No thanks, I’m not in the mood.” Of course God can use our frame of heart to lead us to do different things (James 5:13). But I wonder—why are we so tempted to judge a church’s passion simply by the explosiveness of the music ministry, or the zeal of the preacher, or the authenticity of the people? Passionate churches are praying churches. John Calvin goes so far as to say that the “chief use of the tongue is in public prayers, which are offered in the assembly of the believers” (Institutes, 3.20.31).

Many of us would be deeply troubled if a Sunday morning service came and went with no sermon. But how many of us would even notice if there were no public prayers during the Sunday morning service? Furthermore, are we engaged in prayer while public prayers are being offered? Public prayer is not a time for us merely to listen but to participate, that our hearts would cry Amen! And for those of you that have a weekly prayer service (whether on Sunday or some other day of the week), do you make that prayer service a priority? As we grow to see more and more the importance of corporate Christianity, we begin as far as possible to structure our lives around our church calendar rather than to see where we might be able to wedge church activities into our own personal calendar.

2. When we gather with our families

I could have put this exact answer down for point number one as well, because our churches are our spiritual families. We should think of them as such and care deeply for them as such. But most of us are also a part of a physical family. I speak here of the importance of family worship, and specifically of praying together as a family. Although Scripture does not contain the same type of explicit Scripture examples of this point, there is the repeated admonition for parents to lead their children spiritually. Two passages will have to suffice: “He established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers to teach to their children, that the next generation might know them, the children yet unborn, and arise and tell them to their children, so that they should set their hope in God and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments” (Ps 78:5-7); “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord” (Eph 6:4).

Why not simply set aside a time each day when your family will meet together to sing, to read God’s Word, and to pray? Such a time does not have to be exceptionally lengthy, but it should be consistent. This is certainly not all that it means to grow together in Christ as a family, but it is a start. And it is here that children can be taught how to pray, for they are often quite willing to pray, particularly young children. (How many pastors wish the adults in their congregations were as willing to pray in corporate worship as children often are in family worship?)

I will let Spurgeon speak even stronger admonishment: “I trust there are none here present, who profess to be followers of Christ who do not also practice prayer in their families” (Trumpet Calls to Christian Energy: A Collection of Sermons, 168). And Spurgeon was no hypocrite in this instruction, for his wife Susannah offers the following testimony: “After the meal was over, an adjournment was made to the study for family worship, and it was at these seasons that my beloved’s prayers were remarkable for their tender childlikeness, their spiritual pathos and their intense devotion. He seemed to come as near to God as a little child to a loving father, and we were often moved to tears as he talked thus face to face with his Lord.” (The Autobiography of Charles H. Spurgeon Compiled From His Diary, 4.64).

Probably the single biggest objection to family prayer is: “But we’re so busy.” How busy do you think Spurgeon was? We may need to take stock of our schedules and cut out some good activities in order that we might make time for the best activities.

To those of you who are single—use your time to be involved in the lives of others. Men, if you aren’t willing to grab a friend and pray with him, why are you so confident that you will spiritually lead a family if the Lord gives you one? Women, if you aren’t willing to babysit for a family in your church and to pray with their children, how can you be so certain you will pray with your children if God gives you children in the future?

3. When we are by ourselves

Mark tells us of Jesus, “And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed” (Mark 1:35). This type of behavior was by no means uncharacteristic of Jesus’ life. Luke speaks of how the crowds thronged to Jesus and his teaching, and yet “he would withdraw to desolate places and pray” (Luke 5:15-16). If the Son of God humbled himself and prayed to his Father, how much more should we? If he had private seasons of prayer, should we not also give ourselves to this joyful discipline?

Jesus instructed his followers to do so: “But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret” (Matt 6:6). In an oft-cited quotation, the Scottish pastor Robert Murray M’Cheyne soberly declares, “What a man is alone on his knees before God, that he is, and no more.”

Christians pray. It’s just what they do. And the amazing thing is that God offers reward for prayer. After Jesus tells his followers to “shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret,” he continues, “and your Father who sees in secret will reward you” (Matt 6:6)!

In all of this we should remember that we can’t even pray without the glorious gospel. Our prayers would be repugnant to God if it weren’t for the sacrifice of Christ who purifies us. He is our mediator. He ensures that we come to a throne of grace and not a throne of judgment. And even more He himself is praying for us. Despite all of our failures, he loves us and cries out to God the Father for us. Although our prayer life is often lethargic, he never grows weary of praying for us. What a merciful Savior.

When should we pray?

Such a question sounds a bit strange when pitted with other more natural prayer questions like why and how. But I ask this question in order to prompt specific reflection on planning to pray. We can speak in platitudes about the importance of prayer, the necessity of prayer, and the content of prayer. But unless we take definite steps toward actually spending time in prayer, we are likely to continue to let prayer slip into the background of our lives. Of course we should take seriously the Bible’s injunction to “pray without ceasing” (1 Thess 5:17). We should seek to cultivate a spirit of prayerfulness in our lives. In one sense an answer to the question of when is whenever we can. But I wish to point out three further and more specific answers.

1. When we gather with the body of Christ

We rightly see Peter’s dramatic rescue from prison in Acts 12 as a miraculous deliverance from God. And yet we often fail to realize that something preceded his deliverance: “earnest prayer for him was made to God by the church” (v. 5). When Peter escapes, he goes to the house of Mary, “where many were gathered together and were praying” (v. 12). Lest we think churches only prayed together in desperate circumstances, we read earlier in Acts that this was a regular pattern—believers “devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of breaking of bread and the prayers” (2:42).

Prayer is to be a corporate exercise. Paul writes 1 Timothy in order to give instructions about “how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, a pillar and buttress of the truth” (1 Tim 3:14-15). In this letter Paul instructs, “First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people” (2:1). The assumption in 1 Corinthians is likewise that corporate prayer is taking place (1 Cor 11:2-16; 14:14-16).

I was recently talking to a friend of mine who was expressing concern about the lack of passion in his church. A few days later I spoke to him and said, “Hey, I’m going to pray with some people from your church—you should come.” He responded, “No thanks, I’m not in the mood.” Of course God can use our frame of heart to lead us to do different things (James 5:13). But I wonder—why are we so tempted to judge a church’s passion simply by the explosiveness of the music ministry, or the zeal of the preacher, or the authenticity of the people? Passionate churches are praying churches. John Calvin goes so far as to say that the “chief use of the tongue is in public prayers, which are offered in the assembly of the believers” (Institutes, 3.20.31).

Many of us would be deeply troubled if a Sunday morning service came and went with no sermon. But how many of us would even notice if there were no public prayers during the Sunday morning service? Furthermore, are we engaged in prayer while public prayers are being offered? Public prayer is not a time for us merely to listen but to participate, that our hearts would cry Amen! And for those of you that have a weekly prayer service (whether on Sunday or some other day of the week), do you make that prayer service a priority? As we grow to see more and more the importance of corporate Christianity, we begin as far as possible to structure our lives around our church calendar rather than to see where we might be able to wedge church activities into our own personal calendar.

2. When we gather with our families

I could have put this exact answer down for point number one as well, because our churches are our spiritual families. We should think of them as such and care deeply for them as such. But most of us are also a part of a physical family. I speak here of the importance of family worship, and specifically of praying together as a family. Although Scripture does not contain the same type of explicit Scripture examples of this point, there is the repeated admonition for parents to lead their children spiritually. Two passages will have to suffice: “He established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers to teach to their children, that the next generation might know them, the children yet unborn, and arise and tell them to their children, so that they should set their hope in God and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments” (Ps 78:5-7); “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord” (Eph 6:4).

Why not simply set aside a time each day when your family will meet together to sing, to read God’s Word, and to pray? Such a time does not have to be exceptionally lengthy, but it should be consistent. This is certainly not all that it means to grow together in Christ as a family, but it is a start. And it is here that children can be taught how to pray, for they are often quite willing to pray, particularly young children. (How many pastors wish the adults in their congregations were as willing to pray in corporate worship as children often are in family worship?)

I will let Spurgeon speak even stronger admonishment: “I trust there are none here present, who profess to be followers of Christ who do not also practice prayer in their families” (Trumpet Calls to Christian Energy: A Collection of Sermons, 168). And Spurgeon was no hypocrite in this instruction, for his wife Susannah offers the following testimony: “After the meal was over, an adjournment was made to the study for family worship, and it was at these seasons that my beloved’s prayers were remarkable for their tender childlikeness, their spiritual pathos and their intense devotion. He seemed to come as near to God as a little child to a loving father, and we were often moved to tears as he talked thus face to face with his Lord.” (The Autobiography of Charles H. Spurgeon Compiled From His Diary, 4.64).

Probably the single biggest objection to family prayer is: “But we’re so busy.” How busy do you think Spurgeon was? We may need to take stock of our schedules and cut out some good activities in order that we might make time for the best activities.

To those of you who are single—use your time to be involved in the lives of others. Men, if you aren’t willing to grab a friend and pray with him, why are you so confident that you will spiritually lead a family if the Lord gives you one? Women, if you aren’t willing to babysit for a family in your church and to pray with their children, how can you be so certain you will pray with your children if God gives you children in the future?

3. When we are by ourselves

Mark tells us of Jesus, “And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed” (Mark 1:35). This type of behavior was by no means uncharacteristic of Jesus’ life. Luke speaks of how the crowds thronged to Jesus and his teaching, and yet “he would withdraw to desolate places and pray” (Luke 5:15-16). If the Son of God humbled himself and prayed to his Father, how much more should we? If he had private seasons of prayer, should we not also give ourselves to this joyful discipline?

Jesus instructed his followers to do so: “But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret” (Matt 6:6). In an oft-cited quotation, the Scottish pastor Robert Murray M’Cheyne soberly declares, “What a man is alone on his knees before God, that he is, and no more.”

Christians pray. It’s just what they do. And the amazing thing is that God offers reward for prayer. After Jesus tells his followers to “shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret,” he continues, “and your Father who sees in secret will reward you” (Matt 6:6)!

In all of this we should remember that we can’t even pray without the glorious gospel. Our prayers would be repugnant to God if it weren’t for the sacrifice of Christ who purifies us. He is our mediator. He ensures that we come to a throne of grace and not a throne of judgment. And even more He himself is praying for us. Despite all of our failures, he loves us and cries out to God the Father for us. Although our prayer life is often lethargic, he never grows weary of praying for us. What a merciful Savior.

Micah McCormick is assistant pastor at New Hyde Park Baptist Church in New York.

Source From: Credo Magazine