Sinning in Prayer
First, let me apologize to those who moved their subscriptions already and are getting two copies of this. This is the only message for which that will happen—I’m just trying to make sure we bring everyone along with us during this transition.
How many times do you include the words “if it be your will” in your prayers? I do it all the time, and most people I know do as well. This is a good thing as long as it’s done as an acknowledgment that our all-knowing sovereign God might know something about the situation we don’t and have reasons for wanting things to go another way. On the other hand, I’ve come to the conclusion that it can actually be a sin to include that in your prayer for the wrong reason: because you’re covering yourself in case don’t turn out the way you’re praying. Because you really don’t believe that God will hear and answer, and you want to build in an excuse.
Do we believe the things we say about God and His love for us? Do we believe that He will care for us? Ezra certainly did. In Ezra 8 we read of a group of Israelites on a dangerous journey to Jerusalem.
“I proclaimed a fast by the Ahava River, so that we might humble ourselves before our God and ask Him for a safe journey for us, our children, and all our possessions. I did this because I was ashamed to ask the king for infantry and cavalry to protect us from enemies during the journey, since we had told him, ‘The hand of our God is gracious to all who seek Him, but His great anger is against all who abandon Him.’ So we fasted and pleaded with our God about this, and He granted our request.”
Ezra had spoken boldly about the power of God, and about His love for those who follow Him. After doing that he would have been ashamed to ask for help “in case it isn’t God’s will to protect us.” Now I’m not suggesting we should be imprudent in our actions, but it seems to me there’s a real disconnect if we say we trust God to take care of us but we don’t have enough faith to tithe, or to leave our jobs for a direction He’s pointing us, or to…
I challenge each of us to spend some time in the next few days asking ourselves what things we’ve decided we have to be God’s backup plan on. Ezra would have been ashamed to admit that he didn’t trust God to take care of things. Are there things we should be ashamed of?
