Prayer

As I am on summer holidays, I try to read as many books as I possibly can on different topics. I am currently reading "A call to Spiritual Reformation" by D.A. Carson. We got this book a year ago, but I had never thought about reading it until now. It is an excellent book about the priorities from Paul and his prayers.
Well, many of us find it really difficult to pray. Even when we have prayed for the whole world, and everything we can think of, the clock accuses us of having been talking to our Lord for only 3 or 4 minutes. Sometimes we are too busy with our lives to dedicate much time to prayer; sometimes we don't have a clue what to pray for. Oh yes, and we can't forget the times when we have problems with mental drift in our prayer. The fact is that many Christians spend only a couple of minutes of their day talking to the Heavenly Father and think it is enough, or even worse, some do not pray at all. This book talks about Paul's prayer priorities, and tells us what Paul advises us to pray for. Robert Murray M'Cheyne declared more than a century ago: "What a man is alone on his knees before God, that he is and no more." Indeed we are ourselves when we are talking with the Lord for He knows the whole of our hearts. Let's hear what Carson has to say about what Paul focused his prayers on:

In 2 Thessalonians 1:3-12 Paul shows in his prayer, a “thankfulness for Signs of Grace in the Thessalonians' lives. Thanksgiving is a fundamental component of the mental framework that largely controls Paul's intercession. But for what does Paul offer thanks?

1. Paul gives thanks that his readers' faith is growing.
2. Paul gives thanks that their love is increasing.
3. Paul gives thanks that they are persevering under trial.

So what do WE thank God for? We must look for signs of grace in the lives of Christians, and give God thanks for them. For what have we thanked God recently? Have we gone over a list of members at our local church, say, or over a list of Christian workers, and quietly thanked God for signs of grace in their lives? Do we make it a matter of praise to God when we observe evidence in one another of growing conformity to Christ, exemplified in trust, reliability, love and genuine spiritual stamina? After all, the Lord taught us Himself that our hearts will run to where our treasure lies. If what we highly cherish belongs to the realm of heaven, our hearts and minds will incline to heaven and all its values; but if what we highly cherish belongs to the realm of earth and the merely transitory, our hearts and minds (and prayers) will incline to the merely transitory.

In his prayer for the Thessalonians, Paul has a confidence in the prospect of vindication. We are losing our anticipation of the Lord's return, the anticipation that Paul shows is basic to his thought. The prospect of the Lord's return in glory, the confidence that there will be a final and irrevocable division between the just and the unjust- these have become merely creedal points for us, instead of ultimate realities that even now are life-transforming. If we do not aim for the new heaven and the new earth, many of our values and decisions in this world will be myopic, unworthy, fundamentally wrong headed. Can biblical spirituality survive where Christians are not oriented to the world to come?

Paul keeps in mind his gratitude for the signs of grace among the people for whom he prayed and simple confidence in the prospect of God's perfect vindication of his people when Jesus returns.


What kind of petitions should we present to the living God?Paul's petitions:
1. That God might count the Thessalonians worthy of their calling. Since these Thessalonians are Christians, they have been already called, and now Paul prays that they might live up to that calling. That means these believers must grow in all the things that please God so that He is pleased with them, and finally judges them to be living up to the calling that they have received. Paul wants us to become what we were not, and he prays to that end. He prays that Christians might become worthy of all that it means to be a Christian, of all that it means to be a child of the living God, of all that it means to be worthy of the love that brought Jesus to the cross. On the last day, God will ask: "What have you done with the salvation I bestowed on you? How have you responded to the way I graciously called you to myself? Have you begun to live up to that calling?" Do we not spend far more energy praying for our children that they pass their exams, or get a good job, or be happy, than we do praying that they may live lives worthy of what it means to be a Christian?

2. That God by his power might bring to fruition each Christian's good, faith prompted purposes. What are our goals and purposes? What should we be attempting for Christ's sake? And as we find answers to such questions, we must intercede with God that he, by his great power, might bring these good purposes, these faith-prompted acts, to bountiful fruitfulness.

The goal of Paul’s prayer:
1. Paul seeks the glorification of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Christian’s whole desire, at its best and highest, is that Jesus Christ be praised. It is always wretched when we want to win glory for ourselves instead of for Him. When we do anything with the secret desire that we might be praised for our godliness and service, we have corrupted the salvation we enjoy. Its purpose is to reconcile us to God, for God must be the center of our lives, the ground and the goal of our existence.

2. Paul seeks the glorification of believers. The final transformation, as wonderful as it is, is prefaced by a whole series of transformations, as we become increasingly conformed to the likeness of Christ, in anticipation of the climatic glorification at the end. When we glorify God, we are not giving him something substantial that he would not otherwise have. We are simply ascribing to him what is his. But when we are glorified, in the sense just described, we are being made more like him, we are being strengthened or empowered to exhibit characteristics that we would not otherwise display. On the last day, Jesus Christ will be glorified in us on account of what we have become by his grace, and we will be glorified in him on account of what he has done for us. Brothers and sisters in Christ, at the heart of all our praying must be a biblical vision. That vision embraces who God is, what he has done, who we are, where we are going, what we must value and cherish. This vision drives us toward increasing conformity with Jesus, toward lives lived in the light of eternity. That vision must shape our prayers, so that the things that most concern us in prayer are those that concern the heart of God. Then we will persevere in prayer.”

Well, Paul’s prayers help us understand how to pray, and what to pray for. So, tonight, as you pray, take time to pray for your brothers and sisters in Christ, so that they may be worthy of their calling, and that the Lord Jesus may be glorified in them.

Quotation from D.A. Carson “A call to Spiritual Reformation”