To Whom and how we pray
To Whom
and how we pray
God in Heaven
exists eternally in harmony and unity.
The three persons of God revealed to us in Scripture, Whom we call the
Godhead or Trinity, are an eternal mystery.
However, three distinct expressions of God are revealed in His Word, and
each of His roles are special and purposeful in prayer.
God the Father; the Source and Provisionary
A turning point
in our ability to effectively pray, and even successfully live as a child of
God, hinges on our view of God our Father.
As Father, He is to be at the root of all of our needs met, our Provider
on all fronts. This can be difficult to
grasp or even accept, especially if we try to compare Him with our earthly
fathers. Like all men born into sin,
earthly fathers are sinners and prone to failure and limitations. But God our Father is superior in ability, love, and motive. In all three
things, He is pure and without limits, and He always deals with us in our best
interests. Realizing that we never have
anything to fear as He deals with us is truly liberating. We can always trust Him. Knowing this frees us from our fears of His
response, because we can trust that He is superior, and that the outcome will
always be right if we follow Him.
As the Source
of all things, our Father possesses all resources. Consider for a moment that He is without
bounds, and that He is over everything.
That means all things, without exception. As our Father, His desire is to see His
children learn to rely upon Him and to grow into the potential He has given us
as heirs of His resources. His pleasure
is in seeing us flourish in our surrender to His provision. He wants us to rely upon Him and learn how to
be responsible in using His resources.
We pray to our Father for our need, and in our thanks for all of His
provision over us.
God the Christ; our Priest, Intercessor, and
Perfector
God the Father
has provided Jesus so we can do our part in His desire. As our Provisionary, our Father has included
everything we need to serve Him in an acceptable way. Jesus is pivotal in our relationship to our
Father, because we still are sinners, and we need forgiveness to thrive under
Him. This is important because to grow
in usefulness requires us to interact with our Father, and to interact with our
Father requires us to have submissive and forgiven hearts. Jesus completely meets the gap between God’s
requirements and our failure.
Jesus was sent
to eventually become the perfect representative, or priest, between God and
mankind. Beginning with His sinless
birth, He lived among sin without sinning Himself, and finally embodied our sin
and its punishment as the flawless sacrifice, so that He could always stand in
our defense before the Father’s judgment.
In line with the Father’s demands under the Law, Jesus fulfilled the
roles of both Priest and Sacrifice, and then went on to sit beside the Father
to represent mankind. Today, He
continues to be the only High Priest the Father recognizes, and no one
communicates with God without going through Jesus.
He did not sit
down next to the Father to quietly wait for the end of the world. Instead, Jesus’ continual intercession at the
Throne maintains His gift of Salvation and our effectiveness as servants to God
the Father. Our ‘flesh’ has not yet been
reborn, and we continue to sin – therefore we continue to need a priest to have
forgiveness. This is not a threat to our Salvation, but it is our continually
being restored in our relationship with the Father. Our Salvation is now secured in Jesus’ current
intercession, and in the future at the Great Judgment. We are free from the Father’s anger because
of Jesus’ always saying, “I’ve paid for this sin, too, Father.” We can always rely on Jesus representing us.
Jesus is
responsible for our growing in useful service now, and for our presentation to
the Father at the Gathering. The ‘good
works’ we were Saved for serve the purpose of showing God to the world now, and
in shaping us for God later. Starting at
the point of our Adoption, we continue to grow to become more like Jesus, Who
now owns us. This process is our Sanctification, where we leave
more of our old selves behind, and in obedience, become more like what God sees
in our potential as His children. All of
the means the Father has provided – a perfect High Priest, forgiveness, His
Spirit in us, limitless opportunity to grow and serve Him – are tools through
which Jesus oversees our preparation and
forgives our failures. He is getting us
ready to meet and live with God Himself.
We pray to Jesus and rely upon Him for all of these things, confessing
our sin, sharing our struggles, leaning on His Divine humanity. He’s been there, and He knows our
troubles. Jesus our High Priest is our
best friend!
God the Spirit; the Truth and Essence God shares
with us
We are able to
interact with God in Heaven through His Spirit, Who is here in us as His
adopted children. Christ’s ascension to
Heaven made way for His Spirit’s distribution to us here in Creation, and is a
central result of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. The Holy Spirit in man, at this time now
after the Cross, is unique to authentic believers. God’s Spirit will not be found in anyone who
is not forgiven and adopted.
The Holy Spirit
is responsible for teaching us how to grow into our potential. He only conveys the truth that comes from the
Father, Who is truth in His very essence.
The Spirit is placed in us to teach us how to know and obey God. He exists as part of us. This is an amazing sacrifice on God’s part,
because while we still are sinners, He remains patiently in us. Despite our frequent offense to Him, He
faithfully continues to impress the truth to us. He tolerantly serves us because of Jesus’
constant intercession. He speaks truth
to us in revealing and applying the Word, and by edifying us in joy and
worship, or in convicting us in our sin.
In all cases, it is because of He is bringing God’s truth to us so that
we will learn to properly react to God’s truth.
The Holy Spirit
is our assurance, a proof of our Salvation.
He is a most priceless gift, the Spirit of God Whom those before the
Cross could only look forward to. He is
the treasure we are stewards of, Whom we are to exercise to the fullest
potential. He is our taste of God, a
preview of the sweet fellowship we will experience in full once we go
Home. He is our connection in faith to
God, the very Spirit of Jesus our Savior.
He relays our prayers before the Throne in the way useful and pleasing
to the Father.
To the Father, through His Christ, by His Holy
Spirit
Only people
whose High Priest is Jesus, who are indwelled with the Holy Spirit, are
recognized by the Father as His children.
The Father has chosen to use priests as representatives between God and
mankind. Jesus plainly stated that no
one would see the Father, except through Him.
Jesus is the only One acceptable as the High Priest and perfect
Sacrifice.
Only the
children have the right to be heard and answered by the Father. Effective prayer is only because of Jesus,
His Salvation, and His constant forgiveness of our sins. Prayer before the Throne of Grace is only
through His Spirit in us, Who speaks only in truth.
Who do we pray
to? This is best answered by considering
Who of the persons of God we worship and appeal to in prayer. All three are God, and all three are worthy. How do we pray? Knowing Who God is and how He provides for
us, we can pray effectively to all three.
This is good service to God, what He desires, and what He has told His
children to do in His Provision, His Priest, and His Spirit.