Many theologians and pastors among the
Reformers, such as John Calvin and Martin Luther, and Puritans such as John
Owen and Matthew Henry, have written at length about prayer. Thoughts on prayer
occupy a central place in Christian literature because of the central
importance prayer has in the Christian life.
The Westminster Shorter Catechism defines prayer as "an offering up
of our desires unto God, for things agreeable to His will, in the name of
Christ, with confession of our sins, and thankful acknowledgment of his
mercies." This definition is a good place to begin thinking about how we
at New Life can and should be a praying family.
In prayer, we offer our desires up to God.
This is the “typical” understanding of prayer –
that we ask God to satisfy various needs we have. By “typical”, though, I do not intend to belittle this
understanding, for God does indeed call His children to His side to make their
requests of Him, as Paul exhorts us to do in Phil 4:6. From our study of the Scriptures, we know that
every good thing that we receive comes from the Father. (e.g., James 1:17) With this
fact in view, we can lift up to the Father the spiritual and physical concerns
that we have. In his Institutes of the Christian Religion,
Calvin gives us the following insight.
“For having disclosed to the Lord the necessity that was pressing upon
us, we even rest fully in the thought that none of our ills is hid from him
who, we are convinced, has both the will and the power to take the best care of
us.” God will provide for His people
even in ways we cannot imagine. (Romans
8:28, Ephesians 3:20) We present our
requests before Him, as children to their father, and we can do so with confidence
that He will do what is best for us.
Not only are we to have our own desires and
needs in view, but we should always be thinking of others in prayer as
well. Paul urges us to make prayers and
supplication “for all men” in I Timothy 2:1, while Christ Himself says that we
should pray even for our enemies, in Matthew 5:44. Prayer for another person is
a significant expression of love. We
all recognize the call of Christ to love our neighbors as ourselves. Is there a
better way can we begin to love our neighbors than to pray for their spiritual
and physical needs? I think it is
quite safe to say that we are negligent in our duty to love our neighbors if
they do not hold a prominent place on our prayer list. William Gurnall presents
a thought-provoking conclusion, in The
Christian in Complete Armour: “if we have not charity to pray for our
brother, we cannot expect welcome when we pray for ourselves.”
What we love drives our prayer life. What do we love? What ought we love?
We pray in the name of Christ.
“To pray in the name of Christ, is not only to
mention Christ’s name in prayer, but to pray in the hope and confidence of his
merits,” wrote the Puritan theologian Thomas Watson. Simply attaching the name of Christ to our prayers does
nothing. Praying in Christ’s name
includes an explicit, conscious acknowledgment of his essential role as
mediator between us and God. We pray in
the name of Jesus because it is only through Him and because of His
righteousness that we are welcome at all to approach God with our desires. The writer to the Hebrews proclaims,
“Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens,
Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess…Let us then
approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and
find grace to help us in our time of need.”
(Hebrews 4:14,16, NASB)
Calvin expands further on this thought: “Since no man is worthy to present himself
to God and come into his sight, the Heavenly Father himself, to free us at once
from shame and fear, which might well have thrown our hearts into despair, has
given us his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, to be our advocate (I John 2:1) and
mediator with him (I Timothy 2:5; Hebrews 8:6, 9:15).” Thus, to pray without
the name of Christ is simply not sufficient.
To do so assumes we may approach God in prayer without the covering of
Christ's righteousness. Without Christ's purchase of the great privilege of
prayer, though, we simply would have no place at the foot of the throne of
grace. As Christ has in fact died for us, we are able to call out to the true
and Living God as “Abba, Father”. (Romans 8:15) As His children, robed in the righteousness of Christ, we may
thus boldly present ourselves in prayer before God.
Prayer in the name of Christ also develops
within us a stronger understanding of how fully we must depend upon Him. As the
Puritan pastor John Preston said in a sermon on prayer, “If you come in the
name of Christ, and offer up your prayers through Him, it will cause you, in
every petition you put up, to think of yourself as being so beholding to Christ
that you will be ready to say in your heart, whenever any petition is granted
to you, ‘I may thank Jesus Christ for this.’”
As we see our prayers answered, and as we recall that Christ alone has provided
our way to the Father to whom the prayers offered, our faith in Christ’s
intercession for us grows.
We confess our sins before our Father.
Confession is our prayerful acknowledgement of
our sin and humble acceptance of God's forgiveness, cleansing and
reconciliation through Christ. In confessing
our sins before our Father, we develop a humble spirit, which God desires in
us. “The sacrifices of God are a
broken spirit; A broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise,”
proclaims David in Psalm 51:17. Not
even our smallest sin is hidden from God – there is nothing we can do to keep it from his knowledge. Therefore, it can only be to our
detriment to pray to Him while trying in vain to hide our sins.
When we pray, we ought instead to have the
humble spirit of the tax collector we find in Luke 18, plainly opening our
hearts before God. John Calvin argues
that “the beginning, and even the preparation, of proper prayer is the plea for
pardon with a humble and sincere confession of guilt.” If we neglect confession in prayer, we put a
false front before the Lord. In such a
state of affairs, how can we in good conscience pray that He meet our needs?
We would do well to remember the words of the
Apostle John in his first epistle, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and
just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” (I
John 1:9, NASB) Confession is certainly
not always easy – but the forgiveness we receive through Christ is a perfect
forgiveness. Nathaniel Vincent notes that “Confession has had a great influence
on making sinners humble and ashamed – and upon it quickly forgiveness
followed!” Thus, since our Father is
gracious to forgive the sins of His children, we serve Him best by confessing
our sins, laying them openly at the foot of the Cross as we approach Him in
prayer.
We express praise and thanksgiving to Him.
The chief end (or purpose) of man, according to
the Westminster Shorter Catechism, is “to glorify God, and enjoy Him
forever.” One very specific way in
which we can bring glory to the Father is through praises we offer up in
prayer. David gives us example after
example in the Psalms of singing praises to the Father. We noted above that it is important that we
approach God in prayer in an appropriate manner, and that by confessing our
sins, by laying our souls bare before Him, we may do so. At the same time, while we humble ourselves
by confessing our sin, we should also lift high the Father by meditating upon
His glorious attributes, and praising Him for his sovereignty, righteousness,
holiness, etc.
Again, in his Institutes, Calvin writes, “And since, as has already been
observed, he receives the honour which is due when he is acknowledged to be the
author of all good, it follows that, in deriving all good from his hand, we
ought continually to express our thankfulness, and that we have no right to use
the benefits which proceed from his liberality, we do not assiduously proclaim
his praise, and give him thanks, these being the ends for which they are
given.” Those words make for quite a
mouthful. In short, Calvin makes the
point that thanksgiving is an honor we should be pleased to lift up to God, for
He is truly the giver of all good things to us. We should always be searching the events in our lives for ways in
which we see answered prayer – and then gladly thank Him for doing so,
rejoicing in His goodness to us. In
praising and thanking Him for the mercies that He gives us, we truly can
glorify His name.
Prayer is a means through which we commune and
communicate with our Heavenly Father, a privilege which we are uniquely given
as sheep among the flock of Christ, our Good Shepherd. We ought not to neglect this privilege, but
embrace it! We have been adopted by the
Father as children, through the glorious sacrifice of Christ. Our prayers, whether we bring petitions,
confession, thanksgiving or praise, are spiritual sacrifices in which God is
glorified, and by which we become stronger in our faith and reliance upon our
Father.