Recently, I've been struck by how often Christ is taken for granted in my prayer life. Since my theology of prayer is that we pray to the Father, through the Son, at the prompting of the Holy Spirit, I tend to spend my time focused on the father who my intercessions are presented to and ignore the Son who intercedes for me.
So, for the last few months I've been trying to expand the endings of my times of prayer to exalt Christ. Rather than simply praying "in Jesus name...", I just began one day to seek to say what exactly it is Jesus does at the end of my prayers. What has shocked me is how fruitful and worshipful this has quickly become.
The truth is that, if Christ is the center of our faith, he has done everything. As we come before God, we come in the name of a Christ who:
-Was incarnate, fully God and man
-Lived a perfect life
-Died a substitutionary death
-Was raised from the dead to conquer death
-Reigns in heaven as the glorified king
-Will return to bring to perfection all that he began and glorify creation
And far more, but time fails. So then, I've found that when I have been in prayer over something, I can find its answer in Christ, and am reminded of this when I praise him for who he is. If I've been confessing sins, it is a great blessing to end my prayer with something like "in the name of Jesus, who has borne all of the guilt of my iniquities and suffered the wrath which was rightfully mine." If I am asking for provision, I can rejoice that my Brother and Friend now sits in heaven at the right hand of the father. When I have need of comfort or humility, I can reflect on the Incarnate Christ who was tempted in every way as I am, but triumphed. And in the face of suffering and pain, I can rejoice that He will one day make all things new.
This is hardly some magic formula. However, it has been a great help to me, and perhaps might be an encouragement to some of you. If nothing else, it constantly helps me as I leave a time of prayer and continue with my daily life to fix my eyes on Jesus Christ, the author and perfector of my faith.
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3 comments:
thanks eric. this touches a longing of mine to be drawn to love Jesus and know his presence, that is...experiece his presence moment by moment.
Come my child and drink.
I like your post on the results of praying with power to Christ, but you started saying that we pray to the Father, through the Son by the prompting by the Holy Spirit. Which I agree in principle to, but can't we pray to any of these since they are all the triune God?
Thoughts?
Seth-
I've thought about this before, and I don't really know. Here, in short and disorganized form, are my thoughts on the matter:
1. God is gracious, and the efficacy of our prayers is not based on merit. Thus, even if it is theologically incorrect to pray to, say, the Holy Spirit, He will certainly still recieve our prayers. This is my overarching principle, because the big issue is that we should be praying to God, and everything else is going to just serve to clarify that.
2. Virtually all of the prayers of intercession I can think of in scripture seem to be addressed to God the Father.
3. Indeed, one of the reasons Scripture gives us for trusting God to answer our prayers relies on the idea of God as our Father, and we as his sons by virtue of being fellow-heirs with Christ.
4. Christ clearly serves as the mediator between God and men, and thus our prayers to the Father by necessity come through Him.
5. There are examples of giving thanks to all the persons of the Trinity. However, whether this is prayer or simply praise and adoration is unclear to me, and indeed the line between the two is pretty blurry in general. And rightly so.
6. The Holy Spirit clearly both draws us to God and intercedes on our behalf. However, this intercession is addressed to the Father.
7. However, God is also One, and thus any prayer to the Father is a prayer to the whole trinity. Thus, I don't know that there's an essential difference between praying something like "Holy Spirit, move in x person's heart" and praying "Father, move in x person's heart by your spirit".
All of this still isn't enough to drive me to a substantial conclusion. If you have any thoughts/insights/corrections, I would be glad to hear them; I'm both a fool prone to error and only beginning to think through the wonderful, complex thing which is the faith that we share.
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