Yesterday, we looked at our identity as children of God and some of the many NT texts that indicate this to be true. So, what does all of this have to do with prayer? I think this is vitally important for a few reasons.
- We pray to God as our Lord but also as our Father
- Our identity is secure regardless of performance
- If prayer is communication with God, we must also hear and trust what God says to us.
Of course there are many biblical texts that talk about how we should serve God, and we refer to him as our Lord. This is definitely true, and a part of how we relate to God. We must always have this sense of fear and reverence before God. Yet, because of the work of Jesus and our identity as his children, we can also approach him as a child approaches their Father. He has called us his child, so we should not hesitate to embrace this relational status with God. I think we can uphold both awe and wonder with intimacy and love in our prayer life. We will be exploring this further, as we go along in this series.
Remember, the Father communicates this truth to Jesus before he has even begun his ministry. This security in his identity gives him the confidence he needs in his humanity to go about his Messianic mission. In the same way, we find a great deal of security in knowing who we are to God, regardless of whether we succeed or fail in our callings he gives us.
This means we also can't lose our status as a child of God. We did nothing to earn it, therefore we cannot un-earn it. It was given to us by God.
Knowing, then, that God has accepted us, we can freely come to him in prayer. When his Spirit confirms in our spirit that we are his child, we can freely approach the Father in prayer, not to earn his acceptance but because he has accepted us. As the author of Hebrews says, using a different analogy of Jesus being our high priest, "Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need." (Hebrews 4:16)
This means we shouldn't think of prayer as a have to but as a get to.
So often, we think of prayer only as us dumping our laundry list of needs and requests (even noble requests for others), and we forget to listen in silence for God to speak. What God says about us in Scripture, reminding us in our quiet moments in prayer, is most important. In The Weight of Glory, C.S. Lewis writes:
I read in a periodical the other day that the fundamental thing is how we think of God.
By God Himself, it is not! How God thinks of us is not only more important, but infinitely more important. Indeed, how we think of Him is of no importance except in so far as it is related to how He thinks of us.
It is written that we shall “stand before” Him, shall appear, shall be inspected. The promise of glory is the promise, almost incredible and only possible by the work of Christ, that some of us, that any of us who really chooses, shall actually survive that examination, shall find approval, shall please God. To please God . . . to be a real ingredient in the divine happiness . . . to be loved by God, not merely pitied, but delighted in as an artist delights in his work or a father in a son—it seems impossible, a weight or burden of glory which our thoughts can hardly sustain. But so it is.
—C. S. Lewis, “The Weight of Glory” (1941)
We think of our identity through many lenses: occupation (I'm a pastor), relationships (I'm a husband), nationality (I'm an American). All of those are well and good, but the identity that the God of the universe conveys on us must be the foundation of our life. Those other identities may change (I can move to another country; I can change careers, etc) but my foundation (who God says I am) will never be shaken.
Trusting what God says about us is often easier said than done. Theoretically, it seems simple, but in practice we often miss it. We tend to think our status with God is only as good as our last success or failure. In part, our language around how we relate to God can contribute to this misunderstanding. We often say things like "God is using me." Now, to be fair, I think we all know what we mean by that—"God has inspired me or empowered me to do something for his kingdom." That is definitely true and worth keeping in our vocabulary, as long as we don't begin to believe that is the only way God wants to relate to us. We must also remember that God has accepted us and just wants to be with us, as well.
Additional Content
Reflection
Think of your prayer life. How does your identity as a child of God change the way you think of prayer. Think of how a child communicates with her dad: interruption with no concern for what he is doing, openly sharing everything, joyfully, sorrowfully. This is a picture of how we should communicate with God, viewing ourselves as his child when we come to him in prayer. Are you coming to God in prayer like this? Are you trusting this is how he views you? Do you find yourself praying to earn his acceptance (if you don't pray, he'll be mad at you) or because he has accepted you? Do you pray as a have to or as a get to?