Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and Prayer
Stephen Terry
Commentary for the May 16, 2015
Sabbath School Lesson
“The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.” James
5:16b, NIV
Many books
have been written on prayer. Yet, in spite of this, prayer can seem as elusive
as it was to the disciples who came to Jesus asking him to teach them to pray.[i]
They had given some thought to this and had noticed that John the Baptist
taught his followers to pray. It only seemed natural then that they could ask
Jesus to teach them as well.
Perhaps they had noticed that Jesus gave primacy to prayer in His life. They
could not help but notice also the mighty works of healing and compassion that
He performed. Deducing a connection between prayer and His works, they may have
sought a pathway to more effective ministry.
In response,
Jesus shared several principles regarding prayer. First, He told them that it
was proper to address those prayers to God, Father of all.[ii]
Such a posture recognizes His role as our Creator. As an earthly father is
responsible for his children, our heavenly Father is lovingly responsible for
all of His creation. As that earthly father may long for the sound of his
children’s voices, God perhaps delights in the voices of His children calling
out to Him.
When I was a
child, I remember the thrill we children had and the eager anticipation when
grandma and grandpa were coming for a visit. We would sit on the front steps
and impatiently count the minutes until their expected arrival time. Our
eagerness was reflected in their expressions when they arrived and saw our joy,
they could not help then but share in our eagerness as hugs, kisses and
greetings were shared. To be sure, they were flawed individuals as we all are,
but if such joy can attend that meeting, imagine the joy of keeping our
appointed time with our heavenly Father. Many have found this to be a daily time
that gives power, purpose and peace to their day.
Next, Jesus
advised them to seek their daily sustenance from God. Jesus modeled this in two
ways for his disciples and for us. He was an unemployed carpenter. Any
sustenance He received came not by works but by the power of God. Though He had
the power in Himself, he would not even make bread for His own needs, relying
instead on His Father.[iii]
This is a powerful point of temptation for many. Anyone who doubts the power of
appetite to lead us astray needs only watch television while waiting for
supper. That many have been tempted to eschew a healthy supper for some fast
food is testified to by the vendors’ willingness to spend millions of dollars to
keep these advertisements before the people.
The heart of
this prayer, and perhaps its source of power, comes next. His disciples are
advised to seek forgiveness of sins with the caveat that the one who petitions
for this must be likewise forgiving toward others. Could it be that when we do
not find answers to our prayers as we had hoped that it is because of our
unforgiving hearts? Is it possible that there is a disconnect
between our attitude toward others and Christ’s attitude toward His enemies? Would
we be able to say “forgive them” while hanging from the cross,[iv]
or would our hearts be filled with anger while we looked forward to the
punishment that God would surely pour forth on such miscreants? Suppose we were
as innocent as Jesus, would that only serve to further fuel our sense of
injustice and desire for revenge?
This may truly contain the secret of Jesus’ powerful works. Can there be peace
without forgiveness? Can there be healing while the fever of anger burns? Can
we walk on water while seeking to stoke the fires of animosity? Perhaps a
forgiving heart will reveal vistas we never thought possible. When offered by a
forgiving heart, prayer may be the key we need to open those doors. Maybe this is
why Jesus often accompanied His miracles of healing and compassion with saying,
“Your sins are forgiven.”[v]
His life seemed to be a demonstration of the necessity of both prayer and
forgiveness.
The last
principle of prayer seems to be somewhat paradoxical. Some have a problem with
the idea of God leading anyone into temptation. They will make all manner of
contrived explanations to prove that this just isn’t so. However, we are told
that the Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness to be tempted,[vi]
and the Spirit is a manifestation of the Godhead. It would be hard to believe
that the Spirit would not be working in the will of the Father.
This tempting has been a part of our world since the beginning. God placed the
Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden as a test.[vii]
Whether one sees this as a literal tree in a literal garden, or simply as a
metaphor for the test we all must endure, the principle it represents is the
same. There can be no free will if there is no choice to be made. Free will
demands a test, or it is not free. Since God desires only the free choice to
love Him or not, He must at some level enable the process of temptation. If we
do not allow for that, then we may be forced to create an adversary, the Devil,
who is so powerful that God could not prevent him from planting that tree in
His garden. But this defies the definition of omnipotence.
Those who
feel that God would never enable temptation or the tempter may have difficulty
feeling comfortable with the Book of Job. In the opening chapters of that book,
God grants the Devil permission to assault Job[viii]
with temptation to sin so great that only his life was not taken from him.[ix]
In the end, God never justifies Himself to Job for allowing this. Perhaps the
closest the book comes to an answer is the assertion that anyone, who feels he understands
God, does not for God by definition is beyond accountability. It is creation
that is accountable to the Creator, not the other way around.
Sometimes,
we may become a little full of ourselves, feeling that if we are Bible experts
and with command of Greek or Hebrew, we can explain the unexplainable. Perhaps
this gives us a feeling of power and control. However, this borders on magic,
where one purports to control others with knowledge of the right incantations
that are not readily known by the masses. I say this not from any lack of
education in these things. I, too, hold a degree in Biblical Languages. But I
do not see this as a platform to expound on the intricacies of those languages
and thereby implying that those who do not have that knowledge are somehow
unable to properly understand God. Instead, my knowledge of those languages has
only given me a profound sense of how inadequate any language is to properly
express an understanding of God. To that extent, every language is corrupted
with the taint of sin and imperfection, and there is no “holy” language, at
least not that any human is able to write or speak.
This serves
to make an additional point about prayer. It is not the words we speak so much
as the principles they represent that makes prayer a vehicle of faith and
grace. The inadequacy of language is hinted at when we are told that the Holy
Spirit must make intercession in order for our prayers to be effective.[x]
This seems to indicate that every part of the Godhead is involved in the
process of prayer. We pray to the Father, the Holy Spirit adds His voice to our
prayers, and we make these petitions in the name of the Son.[xi]
In
summation, if we feel that the heavens are brass, and no one is listening to
our prayers, we may wish to quiz ourselves on these points. Are we depending on
God or our own abilities to meet our daily need for food, clothing and shelter?
It may perhaps seem to be the most usual thing in the world to depend on
ourselves for these things. It is so common that Jesus had to tell us to stop
it.[xii]
I don’t know how you are doing on that score, but I am still learning every
day.
We might
also ask ourselves how forgiving we truly are. Are there people we refuse to
speak to because they once hurt us? Perhaps an indication of how much
forgiveness is lacking in our hearts is the degree of schadenfreude we feel when they find themselves in difficulties because
of what they might have said or done to us. May God grant us forgiving hearts
that we might find forgiveness ourselves and be able to pray in Christ’s righteousness.
Then our prayers may become powerful and effective as James has said.
