“If you don’t listen to God, there are consequences.”

In last week’s prayer article, “Signs it’s God’s voice,” I brought up a pastor who wrote a list of ways we can tell God is talking to us. I took issue with them because they imply we can determine it’s God without properly confirming it. With confirmation they can be useful, but without confirmation they’re just ways we psyche ourselves into thinking it’s God when it may not be. At all.

There were two other items in his list which I didn’t yet bring up. That’s because they’re not really “signs it’s God’s voice”—they’re warnings. He wanted his readers to know if we don’t listen to God, there will be consequences.

And no, he wasn’t talking about natural consequences—that when God’s warns us away from something, but we’re not listening and go there anyway, bad stuff will happen, and God was trying to prevent that. Or when God tells us of an opportunity, but we’re not listening and miss it, and that’s wasted potential.

Nope; really he was talking about curses. If we don’t listen to God, he will punish us. He didn’t phrase it that way, and probably never would. But that’s exactly what he meant: God will hurt us if we won’t listen.

It’s a messed-up way of thinking, but he’s not the only pastor I’ve heard this from. Lots of Christians imagine God as a harsh Father, not a benevolent Father. A father who’s more like the harsh parents they grew up with, and they’re projecting that upon him instead of studying what Jesus has to say about him. So when they read the Old Testament passages about consequences for the Hebrews’ sins, they imagine God’s actively smiting them, instead of passively stepping back and letting nature and their enemies have at ’em. They proclaim, not a God who corrects his children, but a God who beats them and calls it “discipline.” Jesus teaches no such thing, so let’s be rid of this false idea.

God doesn’t need to add to the consequences of not listening to him. It’s gonna harm us aplenty when we don’t! I already mentioned missed opportunities, and you have no idea how many opportunities present themselves in our lives. And God knows about all of them. And so can we, if we’re listening and are obedient. And we’ll miss nearly all of them when we aren’t.

That alone should get us to pay attention. You know those Christians who appear to have tons of good luck, good fortune, and blessings coming their way? True, some of them are exaggerating, and some of them are big fat liars. But some of them are totally telling the truth: They’ll do anything God tells them, and they’re listening for it. So God’s pointing them towards every opportunity around them. He knows they’ll make the most of it, and bless him, and help him grow his kingdom. You can do that too, y’know.

“Signs it’s God’s voice.”

Part of prayer is hearing God, and part of hearing God is confirming we truly heard him. You wanna know it’s God, you go find a fellow Christian who also hears God, and compare notes.

But people don’t wanna go find a fellow Christian and do that. We’d much rather tell ourselves, “Oh, I know what God sounds like,” be accountable to no one, and run with whatever we’re pretty sure he told us. Especially when it’s something which really appeals to our flesh.

So when we look for advice about how to hear from God, or how to know we’ve just heard from God, we’ll immediately uphold any shortcuts which tell us, “No you’re right; it’s totally God.” Which never threaten to make us feel foolish when a fellow Christian responds, “Oh God told me something very different,” or “I’m really not sure that’s God.” Which never require us to let iron sharpen iron.

I once got a list from a pastor on some ways we can tell it’s God talking to us. They’re all problematic because—again—they don’t require us to confirm anything with our fellow Christians. They don’t encourage us to interact with our Christian community. They encourage us to go it alone.

So naturally he got a lot of positive feedback from people who were thrilled to hear they didn’t have to talk with fellow Christians about what they thought God told ’em. Now they could confirm it’s God by themselves! In private. With no one to embarrass them for how fleshly their “still, small voice of God” actually sounds.

Giving compliments to God.

People commonly think praise and worship are just synonyms for the word compliments: If you praise God, you say nice things about him, to him. “Oh Lord, ooh you are so big, so absolutely huge; gosh we’re all really impressed down here, I can tell you.” Like that.

And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with complimenting God. He’s awesome! The problem is sometimes we aren’t really complimenting him; we’re telling him this stuff because we think it’s part of the formula for getting our requests answered. When we pray—and many Christians actually believe and teach this!—we have to begin with the compliments. We have to tell God nice things and butter him up praise him properly.

As demonstrated, they claim, by the Lord’s Prayer: “Hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven” is supposedly praise. Not prayer requests for God to make his own name holy, bring about his kingdom, and encourage us to obey him. Anyway, because they imagine these are praises not requests, they insist the Lord’s Prayer begins with praise… so our prayers should begin with praise. Start by telling God how awesome he is. “Dear heavenly Father… ooh you are so big…” and so forth.

Again: Nothing wrong with complimenting God; nothing wrong with beginning our prayers with compliments. Nothing wrong with entire prayers consisting of compliments. Some of the psalms are nothing but compliments.

Psalm 145.0-7 CSB

0A hymn of David.

1I exalt you, my God the King,

and bless your name forever and ever.

2I will bless you every day;

I will praise your name forever and ever.

3The LORD is great and is highly praised;

his greatness is unsearchable.

4One generation will declare your works to the next

and will proclaim your mighty acts.

5I will speak of your splendor and glorious majesty

and your wondrous works.

6They will proclaim the power of your awe-inspiring acts,

and I will declare your greatness.

7They will give a testimony of your great goodness

and will joyfully sing of your righteousness.

David ben Jesse had loads of plaudits to give God for what he’d done. No doubt we can all think of great things God did in the bible, and hopefully we also have some testimonies of great things he did in our own lives. Or how he graciously behaves towards us when we interact with him.

The Jesus prayer.

In Psalm 123.3, the psalmist asked the LORD to show grace to his people. Quote it? Why sure.

Psalm 123.3 NRSVue

Have mercy upon us, O LORD, have mercy upon us,

for we have had more than enough of contempt.

The Septuagint translated it ἐλέησον ἡμᾶς, Κύριε, ἐλέησον ἡμᾶς/eléison imás, Kýrie, eléison imás, “Mercy on us, Lord, mercy on us.” And in Jesus’s Pharisee and Taxman Story, it comes up again.

Luke 18.9-14 NRSVue

9He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt: 10“Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11The Pharisee, standing by himself, was praying thus, ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. 12I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.’ 13But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven but was beating his breast and saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ 14I tell you, this man went down to his home justified rather than the other, for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.”

To this day you’ll hear Christians pray a variation of Psalm 123.3, plus the taxman’s prayer, and Jesus’s name for good measure. We call it “the Jesus prayer.” It’s a really simple, really popular rote prayer. Probably the simplest.

Κύριε Ἰησοῦ Χριστέ, υἱέ τοῦ Θεοῦ (or υἱέ Δαυὶδ/“son of David”) ἐλέησόν με, τὸν ἁμαρτωλόν/Kýrie Yisú Hristé, yié tu Theú, eléisón me, ton amartolón. “Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” Sometimes it gets shortened all the way down to Ἰησοῦ ἐλέησόν/Yisú eléison, “Jesus have mercy,” or Χριστέ ἐλέησόν/Hristé eléison, “Christ have mercy,” or most often Κύριε ἐλέησόν/Kýrie eléison (yes, same as in the Mr. Mister song), “Lord have mercy.” But no matter the form it takes, it’s the “Jesus prayer.”

It’s similar to what Bartimaeus shouted at Jesus to get his attention. We pray it for the same reason. We want mercy.

Mark 10.46-52 NRSVue

46They came to Jericho. As he and his disciples and a large crowd were leaving Jericho, Bartimaeus son of Timaeus, a blind beggar, was sitting by the roadside. 47When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout out and say, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” 48Many sternly ordered him to be quiet, but he cried out even more loudly, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” 49Jesus stood still and said, “Call him here.” And they called the blind man, saying to him, “Take heart; get up, he is calling you.” 50So throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus. 51Then Jesus said to him, “What do you want me to do for you?” The blind man said to him, “My teacher, let me see again.” 52Jesus said to him, “Go; your faith has made you well.” Immediately he regained his sight and followed him on the way.

Good for him. ’Cause when we pray the Jesus prayer, sometimes we get naysayers who object to our praying this prayer. “Stop the vain repetitions. Mt 6.7 KJV That’s not how Jesus taught us to pray!”

Actually it is how he taught us to pray. In his Persistent Widow Story, he taught us to be persistent, to cry out to God day and night, and not lose heart. Lk 18.1-8 This is that. It’s the prayer equivalent of a knock on the LORD’s door. It’s not a vain repetition; we’re praying for good reason! (Better be, anyway!) We’re knocking so the door might be opened to us. Lk 11.9 Sometimes we gotta knock more than once. Sometimes we gotta get loud. But when we mean it, we’ll get his attention. He’ll hear. And respond.

Hearing God. But doubting you do.

When I became Pentecostal, I suddenly found myself among Christians who regularly said, “Oh, God told me [ENCOURAGING WORD],” or “God showed me [DIRECTION TO GO].”

It’s not that I hadn’t met such Christians before—even in a cessationist church, where they preached he didn’t do that sort of thing anymore! Most Christians are continuationist, same as Pentecostals: God never turned off the miracles, never went away nor hid himself. He can and does talk to his kids whenever he wants. Where we disagree is how often he talks. Pentecostals, myself included, find he talks to his kids all the time. Other Christians think it’s more rare; supposedly God saves his statements for special and important occasions, and doesn’t just chat with us like a loving Father would with his children. Kinda reveals more about how their prayer life isn’t conversational. But I digress.

But yeah, I was surrounded by plenty of Christians who claimed God told ’em this or that. And as I learned how to hear God, I gradually became one of them: “God told me [SUCH-AND-SO].” Not as prophecies for others. I wasn’t trying to pull any Moses-style “Thus saith the LORD” declarations or commands. I only talked about what he told me personally.

Here’s the funny thing. Every so often, somebody publishes a book about how to hear God. And these very same Christians who act as if they know God told ’em stuff… scramble to buy these books.

There’s a preacher of my acquaintance who once said, “Y’know, every time I tell people there really needs to be a book about how to hear God, they get all excited: ‘I would love such a book.’ But these are the same people who claim they already do hear God. So… do they? Do they really?”

Fair question. I would suspect they really do. But here’s why they’d would love to read a book about hearing God’s voice: They have doubts. And rather than deal with those doubts like the Holy Spirit wants ’em to, they don’t. It’s easier not to.

Y’see, when we hear from God, in order to make sure we heard from God, we gotta test those messages. We gotta confirm them! Just as the scriptures instruct. Whether it’s somebody else claiming they got a message from God, or we ourselves believing we just got a message from God, we’re always meant to double-check.

But here’s what humans typically do: Believe it if you like it, disbelieve it if you don’t.

Nope, no further checking. No confirmation. Nothing more with any of the things which get dropped into our spirit; we never bother to confirm it’s God. Or, just as bad, never double-check in case it’s us talking to ourselves, or an evil spirit trying to mess with us.

You really don’t have to buy a book about how to hear God better. You just have to start confirming what you think he’s told you. Find a fellow Christian who also hears God. (Ideally your spouse, or some other trustworthy family member.) Make yourselves accountability partners. Make this prayer request to God: “If you’re ever gonna tell me something, please tell my partner the very same thing.” Then watch him do it. There, was that so hard?

But for too many Christians, this is so hard. They’re terrified if they do this, they’ll find out absolutely nothing God ever “tells them,” is actually God. That it’s entirely in their own head; that they’ve been psyching themselves into thinking God speaks to them, or anyone.

Yep, they’re letting their doubts paralyze them. And stop ’em from legitimately hearing God.

Jesus prays for the Father’s protection.

John 17.11-12.

Part of the reason for Jesus’s John 17 prayer is the protection of his followers—who would now include us. The world, Jesus says in the next verses, hates ’em because they’re not of the world any more than he is. Jn 17.14 So they’re gonna need protection. Thus far Jesus had been personally protecting them, but he was returning to his Father; now it was on the Father to protect them. ’Cause thus far, Jesus hadn’t lost any of the people the Father gave him… well, except Judas Iscariot.

It’d be better to put all that in Jesus’s words:

John 17.11-19 KWL

11“I’m no longer in the world.

They’re in the world, and I come to you.¹

Holy Father, guard them in your¹ name which you¹ gave me

so they might be one like we are.

12When I’m with them,

I’m guarding them in your¹ name which you¹ gave me.

I’m guarding them

and none of them are being destroyed

—except the son of destruction,

so the scripture can be fulfilled.”

This prayer is not a rote prayer which we can just repeat, and pray as if it’s all our own words. But we can adapt parts of it and include ’em in our own prayers. We can repeat Jesus’s request that the Father guard us, and help us become one like he and the Son are. Jn 17.11

Jesus’s Lazarus prayer.

John 11.41-42.

I’m going through the Lazarus story, and just before Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead, he prays. It’s an odd little prayer, and from it we can learn a bit about both Jesus and prayer. Goes like so.

John 11.41-42 KWL

41So they take away the rock

{which is at the place the dead lay},

and Jesus lifts up his eyes to the sky and says,

“Father, I give you¹ thanks that you¹ hear me.

42I knew you¹ always hear me,

but I say this because of the crowd around,

so they might believe you¹ send me.”

It’s odd because y’notice Jesus doesn’t make a prayer request. Usually when a Christian’s about to try to cure someone, or even raise the dead, they ask the Holy Spirit, “Can I do this? Can you make me able to do this? Would you cure this person? Is this your will that they be cured? Please do this.” There’s a whole lot of requesting going on. Some begging. Sometimes even some deal-making.

And Jesus does none of that. It’s only, “Thank you, Father, for hearing me. Yeah, I know you already hear me; I’m just saying this for their sake.” Gotta be honest! But in this prayer, he doesn’t ask the Father for anything. It’s solely acknowledgement the Father is here with Jesus—and the Father sent Jesus.

And then Jesus raised Lazarus.

Why doesn’t Jesus beg the Father to empower him to pull off this miracle? Because he doesn’t need to. We already know from other scriptures Jesus prayed a lot. He was all prayed up. When he tells his students elsewhere, right after he threw an evil spirit out of a boy, “This kind can come forth by nothing, but by prayer and fasting,” Mk 9.29 you notice Jesus couldn’t just start fasting right then; he had to already have a lifestyle of fasting. Same with the prayer: Jesus could start praying his head off right at that moment, but what good is that when you don’t already have a conversational relationship with your Father? And Jesus undoubtedly had that already.

So when it came time to cure Lazarus of death, Jesus didn’t need to stand before the sepulcher, lift his hands to heaven, pray for three hours, and maybe Lazarus might come forth. Jesus spent his entire life patterning every action after the Father’s will. Today was no different. And Jesus spent his entire life praying, almost constantly, often intensely, to his Father. He’d been all prayed up since childhood.

If we’re all prayed up, and we step into a situation where someone needs to be cured of illness, we don’t need to drop to our knees and beg God for hours to grant our request. We’ve already been talking to him. We already know what he wants us to do. We already know whether he’ll empower us to cure this illness or not—and if not, we don’t give the poor person false hope that God’ll cure them immediately. We just remind ’em to keep praying, like the widow in Jesus’s Persistent Widow Story.

But if so, we don’t need to pray any more than Jesus did in this situation: “Hey, Father? Thank you so much for hearing me. You always do.” Then, “In Jesus’s name, I order this illness to go away.” And it will.

Praying for capital and non-capital sins.

1 John 5.16-17.

In going through the Law of Moses, you’re going to notice a few of the sins listed in there are capital crimes; capital meaning “liable to the death penalty.” If an ancient Israeli committed any of those sins, the city’s judges were authorized to sentence them to death. Most of American society figures murder, rape, and treason are the only capital crimes, although way too many of us are pretty murdery and have no problem with killing people for simply being in the wrong neighborhood. Or being the wrong color.

Some years ago I read an English translation of the Septuagint. The bit which in the KJV is translated “that soul shall be cut off from his people,” Ge 17.14, Lv 7.20, Nu 15.30 which we usually interpret to mean ostracizing them from society or banishment, got translated, “that soul shall be utterly destroyed from among his people”—emphasis mine. That certainly doesn’t mean banishment; that means death. I checked the original languages, and yep, the Greek says ἀπολεῖται/apoleíti, “will be destroyed.” But the Hebrew has נִכְרְתָ֛ה/nikhrétha, “must be cut off,” which doesn’t necessarily mean death; it can mean, as we usually mean, banishment. Considering how excessive death appears to be for these crimes, you can see why most of us think it only means banishment.

But clearly the ancient Jews who translated the Septuagint disagreed. They regularly interpreted “cut off” to mean death—which means they saw far more sins as capital crimes. So… having sex with a woman on her period was a capital crime. Lv 20.18 Skipping Passover would be a capital crime. Nu 9.13 Yikes. Good thing the Romans didn’t let the Judeans practice the death penalty!

Because of injustice—like the obvious injustice of Christ Jesus getting sentenced to death and crucified—a number of Christians believe there shouldn’t be any death penalty; our governments clearly can’t be trusted to apply it fairly. Roman Catholics, Quakers, and Anabaptists are decidedly against it. Other sects of Christendom have no problem with it, and their members gleefully reflect the popular culture’s attitudes about executing criminals.

Me, I believe some crimes certainly merit the death penalty… but I also firmly believe in grace, and believe it’s wholly inappropriate to execute a repentant sinner who wants to try to make restitution for their crimes. And I likewise don’t trust the government to execute people fairly. Time and again, people have been found to be falsely accused, unjustly imprisoned, and sometimes unjustly executed. There should be fewer executions, not more. But because of the many bloodthirsty Christianists in this country, some states are most definitely pushing for more.

But enough about them. The apostle John lived in the Roman Empire, where the death penalty was regularly enacted by the Romans. Beheading for their citizens; crucifixion for everyone else. Hence Paul was beheaded and Simon Peter crucified during the Neronian persecution (64–68CE). John himself was exiled, which is how he ended up on Patmos, having visions of the End. Rv 1.9 Their crime, of course, was being Christian; the Romans considered “disturbing the peace” a capital crime, and anything could be labeled “disturbing the peace” if they so chose.

I bring up capital crimes because John brings up capital crimes in today’s passages. Or, as he puts it, an ἁμαρτία πρὸς θάνατον/amartía pros thánaton, “sin unto death.” Roman Catholics have extrapolated this verse into their idea of deadly sins, but no, John is not talking about lechery, gluttony, greed, laziness, wrath, envy, and pride. He’s talking about sins where the legal consequence is the death penalty.

And, in context, he’s talking about boldness in prayer—in being able to come to our Father with our requests, and knowing our Father hears us. And in this passage, fellow Christians whom they can pray for. If they’re committing non-capital sins, go ahead and pray for them. If they’re committing capital sins… well, John’s not talking about that today. I’ll quote him, shall I?

1 John 5.16-17 KWL

16When anyone sees their¹ fellow Christian

sinning a non-capital sin,

one will ask

and God will give them¹ life—

to the one sinning a non-capital sin.

There is such a thing as capital sin;

I don’t say one should pray about that.

17Everything unjust is sin,

and sin which isn’t capital.

Boldness in prayer. ’Cause God’s listening.

1 John 5.13-15.

We Christians can get mighty bold when we approach God. As we should; we’re his kids, and our relationship with him is not a dysfunctional one, where every prayer request has some sort of quid-pro-quo God expects of us in return. True, it can definitely be dysfunctional on our part, where we’ll take God’s grace for granted. And some of us might think God does expect to make some deal with us before he’ll grant requests. But really, none of the dysfunction comes from God’s side. We’re encouraged to “come boldly unto the throne of grace,” He 4.16 and ask God for anything.

And one of the reasons John wrote his first letter was to remind his readers of this:

1 John 5.13-15 KWL

13I write you² these things

so you² might fully know

you² have life in the age to come,

granted to believers

in the name of God’s son.

14This is the boldness we have towards God:

When any of us ask according to his will,

he hears us.

15And when we know God hears us,

whatever we might ask him,

we fully know we have

the request which we asked of him.

The word παρρησία/parrisía in verse 14 is regularly translated “boldness,” and actually stems from the phrase πάς ῥῆσις/pas rhísis, “every [sort of] speech.” The sense is we Christians are able to say anything to God. Anything. Again, he’s our Father.

I used to shock people from time to time by talking to God as if I’m talking to anyone else; as if I’m talking to my dad. Which he is, after all; it shouldn’t shock people. Yet it does. Too many Christians are only comfortable with approaching God formally—with a built-in social distance between them and him, because he’s holy and they’re not. They don’t realize by adopting us as his kids, God’s made us holy too. We just have to act holy, for once—and stop mixing up solemnity or religiosity with holiness, ’cause that’s not what it means.

Anyway they think God should only be approached in a regal manner, with formal titles; he’s “thee,” not “you.” Lots of self-abasement, lots of special Christianese, lots of effort made to create a gap between us and our Father, and in so doing, undo everything Jesus came to earth to do. Jesus came to bring God near. But if you don’t understand what Jesus is all about, of course you’ll be happy to keep him far.

The National Day of Prayer.

In the United States, it’s the National Day of Prayer, held the first Thursday of May.

Various articles are gonna say the National Day of Prayer began in 1952. It didn’t really. Congress and various presidents have called for national days of prayer, starting with the first Continental Congress in 1775. They just haven’t been consistent. Ten presidents never bothered to call for any such days.

What did happen in 1952, was Billy Graham held a rally on the steps of the Capitol, which spurred Congress to unanimously pass Public Law 82-324, signed into law by Harry Truman. It says,

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the President shall set aside and proclaim a suitable day each year, other than a Sunday, as a National Day of Prayer, on which the people of the United States may turn to God in prayer and meditation at churches, in groups, and as individuals.

Truman scheduled the first National Day of Prayer for 4 July 1952, and next year Dwight Eisenhower scheduled it for the same day, 4 July 1953. Then it started moving round the calendar. Mostly it happened Wednesdays in late October. In 1972 there were two.

PRESIDENT	DATES
Harry Truman	4 July 1952
Dwight Eisenhower	4 July 1953 26 October 1955 2 October 1957 7 October 1959	22 September 1954 12 September 1956 2 October 1958 5 October 1960
John Kennedy	4 October 1961 16 October 1963	17 October 1962
Lyndon Johnson	21 October 1964 19 October 1966 16 October 1968	20 October 1965 18 October 1967
Richard Nixon	22 October 1969 20 October 1971 18 October 1972	21 October 1970 16 February 1972 17 October 1973
Gerald Ford	18 December 1974 14 May 1976	24 July 1975
Jimmy Carter	15 December 1977 3 October 1979	7 October 1978 6 October 1980
Ronald Reagan	19 March 1981 5 May 1983 2 May 1985 7 May 1987	6 May 1982 3 May 1984 1 May 1986 5 May 1988

In 1988, Public Law 100-307 fixed it to the first Thursday in May, and that’s what it’s been ever since. (In fact, as I was looking up the dates for the previous National Days of Prayer, my search engine kept insisting it took place the first Thursday of May of that year. Nope. Bad search engine.)

Largely the National Days of Prayer were left up to the presidents until the 1980s. In 1974 the International Congress on World Evangelization was held in Lausanne, Switzerland, and on their return to the States, the American delegation decided to create Mission America to enact some of the plans they’d made in Lausanne. Part of Mission America was the National Prayer Committee, founded in 1979 and headed by Vonette Bright, one of the founders of Campus Crusade for Christ International (now Cru). They met in Washington D.C., started coordinating with the White House about National Day of Prayer events, and held their first joint event in 1983 in Constitution Hall.

What does the event look like? Well, y’know: Speeches from politicians and clergy. Prayers. Sometimes presidents let the National Day of Prayer Task Force take the lead; sometimes not. Sometimes they’re good reminders about the importance of talking with God; sometimes they’re a bunch of platitudes which say little. Some politicians have no prayer life at all, and it shows when they talk about it. (Disturbingly, some clergy members are the very same way.)

But what does this National Day of Prayer thing do? Well, it’s a reminder to pray for our homeland, which is something we oughta be doing regularly. A reminder to pray for our leaders; something we oughta also be doing.

And for Christian nationalists, it’s a not-subtle-at-all way to remind people of the political strength of Christian voters. We are legion, and we vote, so get in line. But I’m not gonna discuss the nationalists today; their godless motives aren’t about prayer anyway.

Jesus’s mission to the world.

John 17.6-10.

In Jesus’s John 17 prayer, after he asks his Father to glorify him, he tells his Father he’s been doing the job the Father sent him to do: He’s been collecting followers.

As I said in my previous article on this chapter, this isn’t a prayer we pray along with Jesus, like the Lord’s Prayer. This is a prayer Jesus uniquely prayed to his Father. We’re just agreeing with him as best we can; we’re asking that Jesus’s will be done, same as he wanted his Father’s will to be done.

John 17.6-10 KWL

6“I make your¹ name known to the world’s people,

whom you¹ give me.

They’re yours¹ and mine; you¹ give them.

They kept your word.

7They now recognize everything you¹ gave me

is from you,¹

8for the words which you¹ give me,

I give them.

They accept the words

and truly know I come from you.¹

They believe you¹ send me.

9I make my request about them.

I don’t request about the world,

but about those whom you¹ gave me,

because they’re yours.¹

10Everything of mine is yours,¹

and yours¹ is mine,

and I was glorified by them.”

’Cause we do believe the Father sent Jesus, and how all Jesus’s teachings originate with the Father. Right?

So that, in turn, is what we oughta likewise pray. We belong to Jesus—and our Father. What’s Jesus’s is the Father’s and vice versa. Our Father gave us to Jesus; he’s our Lord now. We accept him.

I should point out in verse 8, when Jesus says his followers ἔλαβον/élavon, “take, receive, choose, accept,” is properly interpreted “They accept the words,” like I have it, or “They accepted them,” like the NIV and most other bible translations have it. Problem is, every so often some preacher with a shaky handle on Greek will notice there’s no actual pronoun there after élavon. Context makes it obvious Jesus is talking about his teachings, but some of these guys will insist Jesus is really talking about himself—“They accept me.” If you ever catch someone preaching that, feel free to ignore them, and go with the way most bible translators have put it.

Glorifying Jesus.

John 17.1-5.

After the Last Supper, Jesus taught his students a number of things, and capped off his teachings with a prayer we find in John 17. Some Christians call it his “high priestly prayer,” since Jesus is Christianity’s head priest; others just call it “the prayer of Jesus.” Whatever you care to call it, it expresses his will—and since he always pursued his Father’s will, it expresses his Father’s will too.

It wasn’t really meant for us to pray as well, like the Lord’s Prayer. But there’s no reason we can’t pray portions of it, or borrow ideas from it. This is all stuff Jesus wants, after all.

John 17.1-5 KWL

1Jesus speaks these things,

and lifting his eyes to heaven, says,

“Father, the hour came.

Glorify your¹ son

so {your¹} son can glorify you.¹

2Just as you¹ give him authority over all flesh,

so he might give everyone whom you¹ gave him

life in the age to come.

3This is life in the age to come:

They can know you,¹ the only true God,

and the one you send, Christ Jesus.

4I glorify you¹ on the earth,

completing the work you¹ gave me so I may do.

5Now glorify me, Father, by yourself¹

with the glory I had before the world came to be,

with you.¹”

This is the part of the prayer many bibles title, “Jesus prays for himself,” because he asks his Father to glorify him—the verb δοξάζω/doxádzo meaning “magnify, extol, hold in honor, hold a high opinion of, esteem.” The Father had said more than once he does hold a high opinion of his Son, but Jesus wants him to make it obvious because Jesus’s purpose on earth is to explain the Father to us, Jn 1.18 and the more Jesus is honored, Jesus’s exposition of his Father is likewise honored. And you notice how many a pagan, who’s had it up to here with Christians and our churches, nonetheless like and respect Jesus. They may not know him or what he teaches; they might’ve been filled to the brim with Historical Jesus rubbish. But they do glorify him, somewhat—and that’s the route by which the Holy Spirit can get through to them and lead them to Jesus, and Jesus can lead them towards actually knowing his Father.

And this, Jesus says, is life in the age to come. They’ll know the Father, and Christ Jesus whom he sent. And live with them forever; the age to come never ends, which is why so many bibles automatically translate αἰώνιον/eónion, “age [to come],” as “eternal.” Life in the age to come is eternal life. Wanna live forever? Get to know Jesus.

Needlessly long and wild prayers.

As I’ve written previously, ain’t nothing wrong with praying short prayers. Y’might remember the Lord’s Prayer is a short prayer. I remind Christians of this and they respond, “Oh! Yeah, that’s true.” Somehow it never occurred to them. Obviously Jesus had no problem keeping it brief, and has no problem with us keeping it brief. His example shows us it’s okay.

Problem is, we don’t follow Jesus’s example. We follow those of other Christians who blather on, and on, and on.

The usual justification I’ve heard, is these long prayers are following Jesus’s example. Remember when he’d go off and pray for hours?—seriously, hours. One evening he sent his students off ahead of him, climbed a hill to pray, Mt 14.22-23 and by the time he caught up with them (walking across the water, but still), it was “the fourth watch of the night,” Mt 14.25 KJV meaning between 3 and 6 a.m. Even if we generously figure Jesus stopped praying and started walking two hours before the fourth watch began (so, about 1-ish), this means he prayed from sundown till 1 a.m. Easily six or seven hours.

Okay, there’s nothing wrong with aspiring to be able to pray that long. But it needs to come naturally, like it does to Jesus. Can you talk six or seven hours with your best friend, or a beloved family member? Well some of us can. Others of us simply don’t talk that much, to anyone. Yet so many Christians have this unrealistic idea we’ve gotta engage God in prayer marathons every single time.

And okay, we can’t pray (especially aloud) for six hours. But we figure we can do six minutes. Sounds reasonable, right? Except most of us really aren’t able to talk for six minutes; we have two minutes’ worth of material. Two minutes altogether, of praise, thanksgiving, and requests. Followed by four minutes of repetitive, meaningless fluff to stretch the prayer out for a bit. Two minutes of authenticity, four minutes of hypocrisy.

Yes, hypocrisy. Who are we trying to impress? God? He didn’t ask us for long prayers. Others? Ourselves? Well, yeah.

“Prayer’s about changing us.”

From time to time I hear people claim, “Prayer’s not about prayer requests; not about getting what we want from God. Prayer’s about changing our attitudes. About learning to accept, and be content with, our circumstances. About learning to trust God’s will.”

Okay. I don’t disagree that prayer’s gonna change us. I don’t disagree that it’s a good thing for us to develop better, less greedy, less covetous attitudes; that a lot of things we pray for, aren’t really things we should pray for. Like Jesus’s brother James said,

James 4.3 NLT

And even when you ask, you don’t get it because your motives are all wrong—you want only what will give you pleasure.

Obviously that’s not true of our prayer requests in every instance; sometimes we are selfless in our requests. Sometimes we are interceding for others, or are asking for God’s help to be more fruitful and to follow Jesus better.

This changing of our attitudes is a good and noble thing. It’s gonna come as the result of praying God’s will be done. Growing to be more content in our circumstances, or even despite our circumstances, is also gonna come as a result of seeking God’s will. And hopefully we do seek God’s will in every prayer we pray, ’cause that’s how Jesus taught us in the Lord’s Prayer.

However. Most of the time when someone’s teaching us “Prayer’s not about prayer requests,” it’s not about encouraging us to become more selfless, nor to seek God’s will more often, nor to develop good fruit. It’s about discouraging us from expecting results.

Nine times out of ten, the person teaching it does not believe God answers prayer anymore. Either they’re full-on cessationist, and think God stopped doing miracles back in bible times, and because you’re asking for a miracle—because you’re asking for something so improbable it’d take a direct, personal act of God’s intervention, and these people are dead certain God doesn’t do that anymore—get ready for disappointment. He’s not gonna do that. Get used to him not doing that. Get used to an absent God.

Or they’re full-on determinist: They think God’s already got a plan in mind, and things are gonna unfold exactly according to plan. And our prayers, for the most part, violate that plan—and how dare we expect God to deviate from his good and perfect plan for our convenience—or worse, our selfish, fleshly motives? Nope; God’s never gonna change his mind, nor his plan, for us. We have to change our plans for him. Get with the program, and stop asking for stuff.

Or, let’s be blunt, it’s because they don’t really believe in God. They’re not Christian because they seek a personal relationship with our Creator and Savior. They’re Christian because they find it personally useful to be Christian. They like the culture, like the interaction with other Christians, don’t wanna alienate Christian family members, don’t wanna be ostracized from their predominantly Christian culture, don’t wanna outrage Christian nationalists, find they can make more money or gain political ground when they identify as Christian—any other reason than that personal relationship with Jesus. They don’t want that personal relationship with Jesus; not really. They’d have to change far more than they care to. And like I said, they don’t really believe in him anyway.

So when any of these groups talk about prayer, they’re absolutely not talking about any personal interaction with our Lord. It’s ritual. They’re making declarations into the heavens because that’s what Christians do—but they don’t believe anyone’s listening, and certainly don’t believe anyone’s gonna respond. And because all you’re really doing is talking to a heavenly brass wall, you need to adjust your expectations accordingly… and have none.

Nope; don’t expect to get any of your prayers answered. God doesn’t do that. Instead, focus on you. Focus on the attitudes you oughta have, as you pretend you’re actually talking to your heavenly Father. How would he want you to posture? What feelings would he expect you to have? Humility?—yeah, that’s a good one. Submission?—yeah that’s good too. Despair?—well let’s not call it despair; that sounds horrible. How about “surrender”?

Other than the pure faithlessness of it all, the reason I object most to this teaching about prayer is because Jesus clearly tells us to ask the Father for stuff. And to not despair. Persistent Widow Story, anyone?

Luke 18.6-8 NLT

6Then the Lord said, “Learn a lesson from this unjust judge. 7Even he rendered a just decision in the end. So don’t you think God will surely give justice to his chosen people who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? 8I tell you, he will grant justice to them quickly! But when the Son of Man returns, how many will he find on the earth who have faith?”

Well he won’t find faith in the folks who think prayer’s not about prayer requests. Only in the people who, like the widow, keep praying and never give up. That’s the attitude Jesus expects of us. Lk 18.1 Yes humility, yes submission—and yes, determination. Don’t give up!

Sanctus.

The name Sanctus comes from the first word of the Latin translation of this prayer. The first three lines come from Isaiah 6.3, where the seraphs are shouting in praise of the LORD; the last three come from Matthew 21.9, where the people shout in praise as Jesus entered Jerusalem on a donkey.

Holy holy holy Lord

God of power and might

Heaven and earth are full of your glory

Hosanna in the highest

Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord

Hosanna in the highest

The form comes from St. John Chrysostom. Earlier English translations, as found in the Book of Common Prayer, have for the second line, “God of Sabaoth.” The Roman Missal has “God of hosts.” These are all translations of the Hebrew יְהוָ֨ה צְבָא֜וֹת/YHWH Chavaót, “LORD of vast numbers” (KJV “LORD of hosts”). Christians have variously translated chavaót as hosts, armies, “power and might,” troops, “angel armies” if you’re gonna make assumptions about what his armies consist of (and why can’t God mobilize his billions of human followers?), or “Sabaoth” Ro 9.29 if, like Paul, you don’t care to translate it. Me, I tend to go with “LORD of War,” because whenever YHWH Chavaót appears in the bible, the author usually expects God to kick some ass.

Most people nowadays assume hosanna (Syriac ܐܽܘܫܰܥܢܳܐ/wošánna) either means “rejoice,” or is a word used to rejoice. It’s not. It means “Oh, save [us].” Saying “Hosanna in the highest” properly means, “By the Most High”—either in his power or his name—“save us.” There’s some expectation Jesus has come to save—which is true, though they might’ve been expecting Jesus to save them from the Romans, not so much from sin and death. But yeah, this isn’t a praise word like people imagine. It’s a prayer request.

Musical bonus: A song by a friend of mine, James Thomas La Brie. Big instrumental first part; and of course his version of the Sanctus in the “Hosanna in the Highest” part. YouTube

Many of these ancient prayers have of course been set to music. That’s the way most Protestants know of them: When I first wrote about the Sanctus years ago, one of the more common responses I got was, “I thought this was a worship song.” Well it is. But first it was a rote prayer. Musicians rediscover rote prayers all the time, and set ’em to music. If they don’t rhyme, chances are they began their existence as a prayer.

And like many a rote prayer, we can use this prayer to help us meditate. You wanna get your mind off the things around you, and concentrate on God? You tap those rote prayers. Repeat them to yourself, focus on the words, focus on the Lord, and praise him.

The “Not what I want” prayer.

The “Not what I want” prayer isn’t a popular prayer. Downright rare sometimes. Because when we pray, we’re intentionally asking God for what we want. Why would we tell him to not give us what we want? Did we suddenly forget the point of prayer?

Why pray “Not what I want”? ’Cause we’re mimicking Jesus. When he has us pray in the Lord’s Prayer, “Thy will be done,” Mt 6.10 and when he himself prayed this at Gethsemane:

Mark 14.35-36 KWL

35Going a little further,

Jesus is falling to the ground and is praying

that the hour might pass him by,

if it’s possible.

36Jesus is saying, “Abba! Father!

For you¹, everything is possible!

Take this cup away from me!

But it’s not what I will,

but what you¹ will.”

Y’notice Jesus did tell the Father what he wanted: He didn’t want to suffer. He wanted “the cup” to pass him by. He didn’t wanna be crucified; what kind of madman would wanna be crucified? Yet at the same time he knew his purpose in this world was to do as the Father sent him to do. Jn 5.19, 8.28 At the time his will didn’t match the Father’s, but he determined he would make his will match the Father’s. Even if it meant suffering.

There’s our example.

That’s why it’s not a popular prayer. Few of us Christians are willing to commit ourselves to God so radically. Of the few who do, we’re totally willing to die for God… not realizing when it really does come time to die for him, perfect fear will cast out zeal. Note Simon Peter. At 9 p.m., totally ready to die for Jesus; Lk 22.23 and 3 a.m., totally lying about him to slave girls. Lk 22.56 Who, as slaves and as girls in that culture, couldn’t even testify against him in court! A few hours can change an awful lot.

But this is why our willingness to follow God absolutely anywhere, can’t be based on zeal. It’s gotta be based on our regular surrender and submission to God’s will. We gotta regularly pray, along with Jesus, “Not what I want. Not my desires, wishes, and will. Your will.”

“You can’t do this without prayer.”

Last time I wrote about prayer, I brought up the story of Jesus curing a demonized boy. When Jesus comes upon the scene, his students had been trying to exorcise the boy, with no success. Whereas when Jesus gets involved, this happens:

Mark 9.25-27 GNT

25Jesus noticed that the crowd was closing in on them, so he gave a command to the evil spirit. “Deaf and dumb spirit,” he said, “I order you to come out of the boy and never go into him again!”

26The spirit screamed, threw the boy into a bad fit, and came out. The boy looked like a corpse, and everyone said, “He is dead!” 27But Jesus took the boy by the hand and helped him rise, and he stood up.

We don’t know how long the evil spirit pitched its fit—a few seconds or a few minutes; certainly not the hours and hours we see in bad movies. But it obeyed Jesus and came out of the boy. Jesus cured him.

A bit later Jesus’s students had a question for their master:

Mark 9.28-29 GNT

28After Jesus had gone indoors, his disciples asked him privately, “Why couldn't we drive the spirit out?”

29“Only prayer can drive this kind out,” answered Jesus; “nothing else can.”

The Textus Receptus has Jesus say “This kind cannot come out except by prayer and fasting,” Mk 9.29 MEV adding the word νηστείᾳ/nisteía, “fasting,” as is found in a few fourth-century New Testaments. A lot of ancient Christians saw fasting as evidence of devotion: A wishy-washy Christian didn’t fast regularly, but a hardcore Christian did. And prayed regularly. And only hardcore Christians were formidable enough to throw out such evil spirits.

Which… is probably quite accurate. And probably just what Jesus meant when he said this. He wasn’t trying to teach his kids, “Okay, whenever you find yourself dealing when an especially ornery demon, pray. Right then. Really hard. Oh, and start fasting—don’t eat anything while you’re trying to perform an exorcism.” The more we imagine Jesus teaching such a thing to his students, the more ridiculous it sounds. That’s how we know Jesus wasn’t talking about just then, in the moment, taking up prayer and fasting. There should already be prayer—and, optionally, fasting—in the Christian’s life, before that Christian is ready to face off against evil spirits.

Wasn’t there prayer and fasting in Jesus’s students lives? Maybe a little. Certainly not enough. Pharisees had already noticed they didn’t fast, and complained to Jesus about it, and Jesus’s response was they really didn’t need to. (This is why I’m inclined to say fasting is optional, and likely not part of the original text of Mark.) As for prayer, I’ve no doubt they prayed, but none of them were at Jesus’s level; not yet. They’d get there.

How about us? Are we trying to get there? Hope so.

The “Help me have faith” prayer.

Jesus was once presented a demonized boy, whose father kinda saw Jesus as their last hope. Mark tells his story thisaway:

Mark 9.21-24 GNT

21“How long has he been like this?” Jesus asked the father.

“Ever since he was a child,” he replied. 22“Many times the evil spirit has tried to kill him by throwing him in the fire and into water. Have pity on us and help us, if you possibly can!”

23“Yes,” said Jesus, “if you yourself can! Everything is possible for the person who has faith.”

24The father at once cried out, “I do have faith, but not enough. Help me have more!”

Jesus’s response was to throw the evil spirit out of the boy, and cure him—and tell his students nothing but prayer could throw out this sort of evil spirit, which merits a whole other article on that subject. But today I wanna focus on the boy’s father’s desperate cry to Jesus: Πιστεύω, βοήθει μου τῇ ἀπιστίᾳ/pistévo, voïthei mu ti apistía, “I believe, [but] help my unbelief.” The way the Good News Translation puts it is closer to what this father meant by it: He had enough faith in Jesus to come to him and beg for help, but man alive did he need more.

And that’s always a good thing to pray. It’s humble; it recognizes we’re deficient in just how much we trust God. We gotta put more faith in him! Often we turn to him for help as a last resort—we’ve tried every other way out of our jam, but they haven’t got us anywhere, and finally we figure, “Well, there’s prayer. If nothing else, we can try prayer.” God should’ve been our first resort, but we don’t trust him enough. Sorta like Jesus should’ve been this guy’s first resort, but he figured he’d try Jesus’s saints first, and see if St. James the Less and St. Jude and St. Thomas and the other saints in the Twelve might answer his prayers instead, Mk 9.18 ’cause Jesus was busy with other stuff. (Being transfigured, actually.) Unfortunately Jesus’s students weren’t yet up to the challenge. They had their own faith deficiencies.

But since we already know we oughta be praying in faith, when we know our faith in God simply isn’t gonna be good enough, “Help my unbelief,” or “Help my unfaith,” or “Help my doubts,” or every similar cry of “Help!” is the right thing to pray. We need some of that mustard-seed-size faith which can get trees to uproot themselves and jump in the ocean. Lk 17.6 We’re not gonna pretend we totally have it when of course we don’t. Even those of us with amazing testimonies of God-experiences in which we saw for ourselves as he did miraculous things, can get wobbly in our faith sometimes. By all means we should ask for more.

Groaning in prayer.

There’s a passage my fellow Pentecostals like to quote whenever we’re trying to show biblical support for prayer in tongues. We honestly don’t need to quote this one, because there are plenty of other, better verses to support and encourage the practice. But Pentecostals love to quote this one anyway. It’s in Romans 8, and I’ll quote it in its context… and just for fun I’ll use the Modern English Version, a bible which just happens to be translated by Pentecostal linguists. Ahem:

Romans 8.18-27 MEV

18For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed to us. 19The eager expectation of the creation waits for the appearance of the sons of God. 20For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but by the will of Him who subjected it, in hope 21that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the glorious freedom of the children of God.

22We know that the whole creation groans and travails in pain together until now. 23Not only that, but we also, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan within ourselves while eagerly waiting for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. 24For we are saved through hope, but hope that is seen is not hope, for why does a man still hope for what he sees? 25But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

26Likewise, the Spirit helps us in our weaknesses, for we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. 27He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

The point I’m gonna zoom in on, is the bit in verse 26 where the Holy Spirit intercedes for us “with groanings too deep for words.” That right there, claim a large number of Pentecostals, is an example of praying in tongues. When we Christians pray aloud, and in our prayer we’re speaking in an unknown language which kinda sounds like moaning and groaning, that’s precisely what this verse is about.

But you read the context: It’s obviously not. Paul was writing about suffering. People suffer. Life is suffering. All of creation itself suffers, because humanity’s sinful condition has corrupted it. And we who suffer, and creation which suffers, are looking forward to Jesus making all things new.

Meanwhile we suffer. And groan. And the Holy Spirit groans too. Sometimes we’re so miserable we don’t have words to describe it, not even to God. But that’s okay. The Holy Spirit is not unfamiliar with the “language,” so to speak, of groaning. But this does not mean groaning is a literal language. Including a literal prayer language.

This means when we’re miserable—we’re sad, we’re depressed, we’re in agony, we’re terrified, we’re anxious, we’re upset, we’re feeling any which way, and we wanna call out to God but words have failed us: It’s okay. The Holy Spirit understands. Go ahead and pray in groans.

And the Holy Spirit will intercede: He’ll pray to the Father right along with us. In groans too, when appropriate. The Father likewise understands.

The prayers of a jerk.

Last week I wrote about Jesus’s Pharisee and Taxman Story, in which he compared the prayers of two guys in temple—a self-righteous Pharisee, and a taxman begging for mercy. The taxman, said Jesus, went home righteous. Lk 18.14

The Pharisee, on the other hand… well, it really depends on how you translate the Greek preposition παρ’/par’. Properly, it’s “besides,” but Christian tradition has been to interpret it as “against, contrary to,” and claim the Pharisee was not righteous.

Why’s this? Well, his works. His prayer makes him sound like a real jerk. Jerks aren’t righteous, are they?

Luke 18.11-12 NASB

11“The Pharisee stood and began praying this in regard to himself: ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other people: swindlers, crooked, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. 12I fast twice a week; I pay tithes of all that I get.’ ”

“I don’t swindle. I don’t connive. I don’t cheat. I’m not like this collaborator with our Roman oppressors. I voluntarily give up food so I can concentrate on you. I give away a tenth of absolutely everything.” What a braggart.

Thing is, once you think about it, plenty of devout God-followers oughta be able to say the very same thing, and honestly mean it. Hopefully not with this Pharisee’s attitude, but still, as far as good works are concerned, dude was doing ’em.

The part which makes us unsympathetic to the Pharisee’s prayer is of course the very first part of it. “God, I’m so happy you didn’t make me one of the lowlifes who don’t do as I do. Thank you that I was born into this race, and for making me one of the good ones.” Yep, it’s his crappy, fruitless Pharisee-supremacist attitude. How dare he. (And hopefully our offense isn’t because we figure only we are permitted to think that way, as Christian supremacists will.)

Still, does the Pharisee’s bad attitude undo his righteousness? What does makes us righteous or unrighteous? What justifies us before God?

Hopefully we’ve not forgotten basic Christian doctrine: It’s faith. We don’t merit justification and salvation by fasting and tithing. Neither do we unearn it by disparaging others in our petty, selfish prayers. When we believe and trust God, he accounts it to us as righteousness, same as he did with Abraham. Ge 15.6, Ro 4.3 Does the Pharisee in Jesus’s story not trust God? Clearly he does—and he’s totally thanking God for making him the way he is. And yes, he’s a great big jerk about it. But he does believe God. Like it or not, this means he’s not unrighteous, no matter how your favorite bible translates Luke 18.14.

Okay, maybe he’s less righteous, as William Tyndale put it:

Luke 18.14 Tyndale

14AI tell you: this ma departed hoe to his housse iustified moore then the other.

But again: If our righteousness comes from faith not works, it bad theology to say this Pharisee isn’t righteous. Jesus does rebuke his hypothetical Pharisee for being a dick, but he never does declare him outside of God’s kingdom. For he’s not.

This oughta be some comfort to those Christians who slip up, mirror this Pharisee’s attitude, and start thinking of ourselves more highly than we ought. And even start praying that way too. We shouldn’t do that; we should certainly know better; the Christian walk should reflect humility not pride. Remember no matter how many good deeds we do, it never wholly cancels out our sins; we don’t deserve salvation. But God is gracious, so we have his salvation anyway. So be gracious as well. Be better than this Pharisee.