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Jesus taught His disciples to pray in a manner that we seldom hear today. He taught them to first seek God, then His kingdom, and then to bring our needs to Him. Most people pray in just the opposite way. We ask God to meet our needs. We then pray for others. And if we have any time left, we give Him thanks and place our focus on Him. But praying like Jesus taught was different.
After we have sought His
face, we then pray for others. Then we bring our needs to God. Jesus taught us to
bring our most basic needs to the throne of God first - to ask Him for our
daily bread. But then, He taught us to bring our deepest needs to Him. And what
is the deepest need in our lives?
Forgiveness. There's no
deeper need in the human heart. That's why Jesus taught His disciples to pray,
"Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors" (Matt. 6:12
NIV). We need to be forgiven, and we need to forgive others. The two are
intricately tied together.
Prayer is basically a
response to the character and nature of God. And what is the nature of God?
He's holy. Absolute purity. There's no blemish in Him. He is complete
perfection. He's in a category all His own. He's set apart from all other creation. For He's the Creator. It's only when we see God in this manner that
we see ourselves and the deep need in our lives to be forgiven and to forgive.
Study the lives of the
great men and women of God. They all came to know God in His holiness. The
power of God in their lives was the fruit of the sweet aroma of God's holiness in their hearts. Before Moses saw signs, wonders and miracles, he had to take
the shoes off his feet because he was standing on holy ground. The reason the
ground was holy - God was present.
Before Joshua made his
great conquests, God opened his mind and heart to His holiness. Throughout the
ages it's been the same story. Men and women met a holy God, and they were
never the same. Isaiah heard the angels crying, "Holy, holy, holy, is the
LORD of hosts: the whole earth is full of His glory (Is. 6:3 KJV). He could
have no other response but to say, "Woe is me! for I am undone; because I
am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips:
for mine eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts (v.5).
We live in an age of
shallow confession because we've lost sight of a holy God. When we see him in
His holiness, we will cry with Isaiah, Paul, Moses, and other men and women of
God, "Oh God, forgive me of my sins, of my transgressions. Have mercy on
me. I'm so unlike You." Such confession is the deepest need of our hearts.
Only Jesus can meet that need.
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