We had a great conversation at MVBC Wednesday evening, stemming from James 5:13, "Is any one of you in trouble? He should pray. Is anyone happy? Let him sing songs of praise?" We thought about the need to pray with thanksgiving--a recurring them in Paul's call for us to pray, "Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful" (Colossians 4:2).
Certainly in our prayers we are to thank God for things He has done and things He will do. But there is more to praying with thanksgiving. We are to pray recognizing that we do not pray to earn God's favor but because we have God's favor. Prayer is a response to all that the Father is for us in Christ. We are thankful to be redeemed, and so we pray. I love how Graeme Goldsworthy put it in his book, Prayer and the Knowledge of God:
Since prayer is an aspect of our sanctification, our development or growth in godliness, it too must be understood as the fruit of what Christ has done for us. . . . Problems emerge when the task of praying is urged without the motive and pattern of the unique saving role of Jesus. . . . A wrong perspective on prayer may well come from thinking of it as playing a part in establishing our acceptance with God. Prayer that is not the grateful response of the justified sinner is likely to degenerate into an attempt to gain acceptance (13).
How many of us are tempted to pray so that things will go well for us instead of because God has already been good to us? How many of us pray because we feel we must instead of because we can?
May our prayer lives be freed from the suffocating prison of legalism and be unleashed by the sovereign power of grace.
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