There are countless reasons why our western church culture balks at the mention of prayer and intercession. Our great need for prayer preaches well in the pulpit and may arouse many amens, but it does not live out so painlessly. So what exactly is the pain point? Why do we see the gap when the rubber meets the road—or when our knees hit the floor? What is robbing us of a culture of true prayer? What has caused this rift in our hearts that we evade such a holy calling?
Prayer is the essence of relationship itself, communion and fellowship with our Father and a Holy God. Oh, what a privilege if we will only see it as so. We must change the way we think. Just as in earthly relationships, our relationship with God is no different in that it requires stark honesty, humility, and laying down one’s life and rights for the sake of love. It requires the sacrifice of self.
Jesus said “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends” (john 15:13). Although he was speaking of himself and his death, he was also alluding to the great calling of his church.
Friends, we have missed the nobility of our calling to prayer by clinging to our self-preservation and misconceptions of love.
“Then He said to them all, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me.”(Luke 9:23) That doesn’t sound instantly gratifying. It does not sound comfortable or pleasurable. This instruction, to the untrained ear, seems hard. This exhortation to the hardened heart seems harsh and unobtainable… But it is so appealing to the heart filled with desire.
To the One who burns in love, self sacrifice seems ever so reasonable and just.
We must lay down our lives for the sake of our dearest friend. He is calling us beyond our self-service and our own dreams and ambitions. He is calling us away to a life of abandonment and extravagant sacrifice. Calling us out from a culture that has robbed us of real love and encounter with its empty promises of fulfillment. There is no joy to be had without sacrifice. We love him because he first loved us…and we will find him there, in the lowliest of all places, interceding still for the souls of men, praying fervently for his friends.
Can we not join Love himself in his laying down? Or will we forfeit the grace that could be ours, and the friendship that he so patiently offers? Will we save our lives, only to find in the end, that we have missed him?
Prayer is a cross. Let us lay down upon it’s beams with surrendered hearts,
and let Love have his way.
Oh he is calling..
Say [yes.]
