Grace-Driven Prayer

I have never meant someone who has said, "I pray all that I need to," or "I am really good at prayer." Prayer is just one of those areas of the Christian walk that is tough, one that I don't think we will ever fully comprehend or master, but it is none the less important. I think that so often prayer is driven by what we feel we want. We lay out our petitions before the Lord, "be with Susie, and little Jimmy and be with my dog, etc." And so often we come to the great throne of God with our burdens, as He has asked us to, but so often our hearts are driven more by our need than by His grace, and we become burned out and distracted from the end goal of prayer and petitioning, which has and always will be to drawn nearer to the Father.

He tells us in His word, come to me all you who are burdened and heavy laden and I will give you rest. For prayer to be something that we grow excited about and dive into more and more, it has to have a proper heart and mind going forth. I have thought of 3 things that characterize grace-driven prayer.

1. A proper perspective of God-WIthout this we are doomed. God is not santa in the sky, He is not our fairy-god father, He is not the genie from Aladdin. We do not snap and God is forced to answer, He is supreme, He is sovereign over all things, HE is GOOD. We may not understand all His ways, Is. 55:8-9, but we know and trust that all His ways are right and just, Hosea 14:9. God is above all powers of this earth, He is not bound by the same things we are and He knows the beginning from the end. This mindset starts us off on the right foot, knowing that in all things are God is greater then anything and He is unchangeable and He is the standard for truth.

2. A proper view of ourselves-Matt. 11:28 says that we are weary, we must know that we are finite, that we are in need of help, that we cannot do this on our own strength or power. That we are the ones in need of saving, that we come before Him humbled to be in the presence of the almighty. Having this mindset helps us to come before the throne of God without feeling entitled or arrogant. We know that we have been saved and that He is in the end, through all the trials and fires, going to refine us for His glory and our good.

3. Believe that He answers-Ps. 118 shows us this clearly. When we call on the name of the Lord we believe, with our whole hearts that He will hear us and He will answer. That He loves when His children petition His throne with a right mindset. We believe that He is wiling and able to do far beyond what we expect or hope for. Remembering that the answer may not look the way we wanted it to, but we know that He heard and answered it for our good and His glory.

I think so often of Job as the example for proper grace-driven prayer. He knew who His God was, and when His world came crashing down, he had a firm foundation that would not curse God, and when the Lord built Him back up, he had the same foundation to not be arrogant in all his stuff. He saw who he was, and yet He believed God would answer him though it didn't look like it all the time.

So today may our prayers be grace-driven, may we pray because of what He has done and what He has yet to do.

LOVE GOD LOVE PEOPLE