What should God’s children pray for? Obvious answer,
anything and everything!
Recently at Girls Camp, I was sharing a room with my
daughter and 5-year-old granddaughter. I
was tired and perhaps a little cranky, and I said to my granddaughter, “Will
you pray for me to feel better?” She was quiet for a bit and then said, “Feel
better yet?” I said, “Will you pray out loud for me to feel better?” She sighed,
and wandered off into the coat closet.
When I followed her, she said, “Go away!” So I left her alone and from a distance heard
her voice saying something. Then she
yelled at me, “Do you feel better YET?” And I did feel better. It was a great moment.
There are at least two important prayers that we need to
pray, even more important than the prayer to feel better.
We pray for God to forgive us. We ask God, who has adopted us as children,
for forgiveness when we miss the mark, when we stray, when we sin. And when we do this, we accept God’s
forgiveness and forgive ourselves. No
wallowing.
King David with the
perfect heart
1 Kings 9:4 God says
to Solomon, “if you will walk before me with integrity (perfection) of heart
like your father David, and in uprightness do what I have commanded you,
keeping my statutes and judgments, I
will establish your throne.” Several other times David is referred to as having
a perfect or complete heart for God. Yet
he wasn’t a perfect person. So how was
someone who is undivided in loyalty to God respond when confronted with his
sin?
2 Samuel 11 David commits adultery (and murder). Nathan confronts him and calls him out; prophesies
woes, including the death of the baby. David’s sin has terrible
consequences. However, his perfect heart
shows in his instant contrition on being confronted, and his acceptance of the
consequences of his sin when he sees they are inevitable.
David’s prayer for forgiveness:
Pity me, O Judge, in my loathsomeness
because of your steadfast love, goodness, kindness,
faithfulness
According to your deeply felt compassion
destroy my rebellion
submerge me in water and stomp on me repeatedly to wash away
my crime, my depravity
purify me from my uncleanness
I intimately understand and admit my rebellion
my sin is continuously present to me
I have lost myself, wandered from the way, missed the mark, offended
against you, you alone
I have caused this hurt and misery right in front of you
You are just and right in how you speak to me, and you are
pure in how you have evaluated me, how you have condemned my action and how you
punish me
I have been twisted up, writhing in perversity from birth
It was a calamity that I was born
You delight in, you bend down towards faithfulness,
firmness, under the surface, truth deep within
you cause my walled off places to know intimately what is
wise, prudent, skillful
Purify me from uncleanness, and I will be clean, shined up
trample me under water to make me clean, and I shall be
shinier, whiter, than snow
Cause me to pay attention to joy, to yield to gladness, that
the bones, the self you have crushed and made contrite may dance with joy.
Put my sins out of your presence
Wipe out my crimes, destroy my depravity
Shape in me a pure mind, will, understanding, oh Judge.
Repair, make new a firm, stable mind and spirit in me.
Don’t throw me out of your presence, don’t send me away from
your face.
Don’t snatch away the holy spirit you gave me.
Bring back, refresh, repair the joy of victory and
deliverance.
Support and brace me with your generous, noble spirit.
I will train rebels to stay on your road
condemned ones will be brought back to you
Rescue me from having shed blood, snatch me out of my guilt
for murder, my judge who delivers me, who saves me
I will shout loudly about your right acts, your justice
O Lord, loosen up my words and I will publish your glory,
your fame
you take no pleasure in sacrifice, or I would make one
burnt offerings don’t please you
the sacrifices to the Judge are a crushed, shattered spirit,
mind, disposition
a shattered and broken understanding, will, mind, inner
self, O Judge, you will not consider vile, hold as contemptible, think
worthless
make glad, make beautiful, do well by Zion, in your favor,
goodwill
defend Jerusalem
Then you will be delighted with the sacrifices of justice,
of right living, with all the other offerings
then they will offer praise to you
We learn several truths about repentance from this
prayer:
Tell God you are
willing to accept the truth of God’s evaluation of your action
Allow your emotions
to fully experience the shame and sorrow of having caused misery, of having
done harm; admit that it was your fault; express this to God
Ask God to scrub you
up inside, even though it is painful
Invite God into your
hidden, secret walled-up places
Embrace joy and
gladness and praise God for God’s justice and mercy
Note that David sees his sin as faithlessness to God first;
he lost his true center, his real self.
Note also that he admits that he did serious harm to other people
also. Both of these are true pictures of
sin.
Christians and Sin
The apostle John in his first letter says these things: Those born of God do not sin. But if we sin, Jesus prays for us to God the
Father. Let’s confess our sins, and God
is faithful and just and will forgive our sins, and cleanse us from all
unrighteousness. There is no point in
denying our sin or covering it up. This just shows that Jesus doesn’t live in
us. Let’s walk in the light, as Jesus is
in the light and IS the light, so that we can fellowship with one another.
Let’s not just say we love others but show its truth by our actions. This convinces even us that we are in the
truth. Sometimes our hearts wrongly condemn us, so our loving actions can
reassure us because God is greater than our hearts, and God knows everything.
And when our hearts are clear, we have boldness before God, and God gives
whatever we ask because obey God, and that makes God happy.
Second, we ask God to
forgive others through us.
Jesus emphasizes forgiving right from the start. Matthew 6:12—“Forgive us our debts as we forgive
our debtors” (KJV). It’s one of the key ideas of the Good News that calls me to
account all the time.
“Forgive” has in its Greek heart the idea of send it away,
disregard it, give it up. “Debts” has in its Greek heart the idea of “should,”
obligation, duty, including the duty of making amends for injury.
So a reasonable paraphrase might be “Set aside our ‘shoulds’
as we set aside ‘shoulds’ for other people.” Or “cancel out our unpaid obligations
to You, God, as we cancel out others’ unpaid obligations to us.” Or “let us off the hook as we let others off
the hook.” (See Strong’s Concordance.)
Then Jesus goes on to say, “For if ye forgive men their
trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: But if ye forgive not
men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”
“Trespass” has in its Greek heart the idea of missing the
mark, or, figuratively, lapsing from truth or uprightness, going astray. How
astonishing that we are told without wiggle room that we are to forgive other
human beings for not getting it right, and even for getting it wrong. Jesus
doesn’t limit forgiveness to “if they are sorry.”
I need help to do this.
It is so hard for me to forgive my betrayers and my enemies. I have
experience with spending nearly a decade asking God for vindication and at the
end having God ask me to forgive. The great opera singers Jessye Norman and
Kathleen Battle help us understand feeling betrayed in their rendition of “Scandalize
My Name”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6EOXT6_inw&feature=related
Jesus understands what it means to be betrayed. Once again, we remember that our high priest
has been through our experience. Jesus is not surprised by betrayal. He warned Peter that he would be a coward and
deny knowing Jesus. He warned Judas by
referencing Psalm 41 when Judas was leaving their last meal together. Jesus also knows that God will not let his
enemies triumph over him and that he will be in God’s presence forever.
In Mark 11, Jesus says, right after one of the great prayer
promises, “When you stand praying, let go, send away, give up whatever you are
holding tightly against someone else.
Then your Father in heaven lets go, sends away, gives up holding against
you your straying from the right way, your lapses from the truth.”
See also Luke 6:36-37: do not judge, do not condemn. Instead, forgive, and give.
Psalm 41 moves from blessing those who care for the poor, to
a prayer for God’s healing, to the statement that “My enemies wonder in malice
when I will die, and my name perish. And when they come to see me, they utter
empty words, while their hearts gather mischief; when they go out, they tell it
abroad. All who hate me whisper together about me; they imagine the worst for
me.
“They think that a deadly thing has fastened on me, that I
will not rise again from where I lie. Even my bosom friend in whom I trusted,
who ate of my bread, has lifted the heel against me. But you, O Lord, be
gracious to me, and raise me up, that I may repay them. By this I know that you are pleased with me;
because my enemy has not triumphed over me. But you have upheld me because of
my integrity, and set me in your presence forever. “ (Psalm 41:5-12)
The word “repay” here almost everywhere means make things
right so one can be at peace.
This psalm shows us what many of the psalms do, that we can
take our pain from being betrayed to God. We can pray for justice. And then we need to leave it there.
“Vengeance is mine,” says God, “I will repay.”
Forgive them for they know not what they do. This is what
Jesus prayed for those who denied that he was God in the flesh.
Jesus makes a way back for betrayers and makes peace to his
enemies. We know the story at the end of John’s Gospel where Jesus asks Peter
if Peter loves him. And we have this
promise as well from the prophet Zechariah: “And I God will pour out a spirit
of compassion and supplication on the house of David and the inhabitants of
Jerusalem so that when they look on the one they have pierced, they shall mourn
for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him, as one
weeps over a firstborn…On that day a fountain shall be opened for the house of
David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, to cleanse them from sin and impurity.”
(Zech. 12:10, 13:1).
St Paul in Romans 12:17-21 gives us good advice with regard
to those who have betrayed us or who we think have betrayed Jesus.
Don’t repay anyone injury for injury. Take care to present
to others what is useful, good, genuine, beautiful, honorable among all people.
Be strong in yourself to make peace and live in peace with everyone. You are
dearly loved. Don’t insist on being
vindicated, don’t punish others for how they’ve hurt you, but get out of God’s
way and give God space to judge. For God says, Vindication, vengeance,
punishment belong to me. I will take care of setting things right.
Therefore, if your opponents, the ones who do what you hate,
the ones who hate you, are hungry, feed them. If they thirst, give them drink.
For in so doing, you will call up in them the painful memory of how they have
harmed you and give them motivation to repent. Don’t let meanness and
wickedness win over you, but instead you win over them with goodness, honor,
uprightness, and joy.
So how do children pray?
About everything and anything, of course. We ask our Father to forgive
us for our missteps, our strayings, our errors, our harms to others, and we ask
our Father to forgive others as well through us.
As we close, if you want God to forgive you for something or
to help you forgive someone else, you are free to come down to the front to
pray, or to pray where you are. We’ll
sing our thanksgiving for the great love Jesus shows us, and then you are free
to go.
O the deep, deep love of Jesus, vast, unmeasured,
boundless, free!
Rolling as a mighty ocean in its fullness over me!
Underneath me, all around me, is the current of Thy love
Leading onward, leading homeward to Thy glorious rest above!
Rolling as a mighty ocean in its fullness over me!
Underneath me, all around me, is the current of Thy love
Leading onward, leading homeward to Thy glorious rest above!
O the deep, deep love of Jesus, spread His praise from
shore to shore!
How He loveth, ever loveth, changeth never, nevermore!
How He watches o’er His loved ones, died to call them all His own;
How for them He intercedeth, watcheth o’er them from the throne!
How He loveth, ever loveth, changeth never, nevermore!
How He watches o’er His loved ones, died to call them all His own;
How for them He intercedeth, watcheth o’er them from the throne!
O the deep, deep love of Jesus, love of every love the
best!
’Tis an ocean full of blessing, ’tis a haven giving rest!
O the deep, deep love of Jesus, ’tis a heaven of heavens to me;
And it lifts me up to glory, for it lifts me up to Thee!
’Tis an ocean full of blessing, ’tis a haven giving rest!
O the deep, deep love of Jesus, ’tis a heaven of heavens to me;
And it lifts me up to glory, for it lifts me up to Thee!
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