The Goodness of God and Prayer

⁹ In this manner, therefore, pray:

Our Father in heaven, Matt 6

Many people feel that they do not know how to pray. If praying does not come naturally to you, you are in the same boat as the disciples before Jesus taught them to pray. Remember they asked Him “Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples.” (Luke 11:1)? In the “Lord’s Prayer”, Jesus lays down a blueprint to direct our prayer. He instructs us “In this manner, therefore, pray”, giving us a model to follow to direct our requests. If you don’t know how to get somewhere, follow a map. If you don’t know how to pray, follow “The Lord’s Prayer”.

Before Jesus directs our requests, He directs us to whom we should pray. “Our Father in heaven” shows that we are not praying to an aloof, far off god who set the world in motion and has nothing to do with us. We are praying to our Father. The One to whom “we are to cast our cares because He cares.” (1 Peter 5:7).  There is a sense of intimacy there.  People who grow up in a healthy family and can relate to a father figure know that a father is interested in the affairs and welfare of his child. They are not bothered by their children asking to have their needs met.

In Matthew 7, Jesus compares our Heavenly Father to human fathers. Earthly fathers will give children bread when they ask for bread, not a snake. You, whether mother or father, when your child asks you for something will gladly meet your child’s needs and not give them something that will harm them. How much more will a perfect good and loving God meet His children’s needs?  What is at the center of Jesus’s point is that God is good, and God’s goodness is the foundation of our prayers. He gives because He is good, not because we are good.

When we pray “Our Father in heaven” we are not only addressing the God of the universe, but we are also addressing our attentive Father. His nature is to be interested in the needs of His children. We don’t need to compete for His attention.  When we pray “Our Father in heaven” we are praying to an infinitely good God, who can and wills to do nothing but good for His children. When you pray to your Father in heaven, resist the urge to ask based on your own merits, but base your petition on the goodness of God.  

Simply to God

⁵ “And when you pray, you shall not be like the hypocrites. For they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. ⁶ But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.^[b] 7 And when you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do. For they think that they will be heard for their many words.

⁸ “Therefore do not be like them. For your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him. ⁹ In this manner, therefore, pray: Matt 6

In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus teaches His disciples how to prayer. In the following weeks, we will cover the section known as The Lord’s Prayer where Jesus instructs His followers to pray “In this manner.” Prior to showing His disciples how to pray, the Lord shows them how not to pray. That is what we will discuss this week.

Jesus tells us not to pray for the praise and approval of men. He cites the hypocrites that appear to being praying to God, but really are praying to the people listening to them, seeking their praise. Jesus says in essence, “If your prayer is for the praise of men, then whatever praise you get from them, is the blessing you will get.” Most of us do not pray like the hypocrites of those days, but we sometimes struggle with trying to sound “spiritual” or eloquent. The best hedge against this is to have your own private prayer life. Jesus tells us to go off by ourselves and pray. Jesus is not teaching against corporate prayer, we see the disciples pray together often in the book of Acts; however, our own private prayer should be the foundation of our prayer lives.  When you pray privately there is no temptation seek others approval. When you do pray in front of others, just remember that it is God that you are praying to and only God can answer your prayer.

The second thing that Jesus tells us is not to think God will answer our prayers for our “many words.” Sometimes we think we cannot just ask God “Please provide money for my mortgage.” We feel that we have to ask Him, and then restate it, and then tell Him that will we not miss a week of church this month. We feel that we have to bargain. This is a form of works. God answers prayers because He is good and provides for His children, not because of how verbose we were when we asked and not because we cut a deal with Him.

In summary, prayer is not a time for performance, either to impress the people around us or to impress our Heavenly Father. So when you pray, pray simply and simply pray to God.

The Deity of Christ: Part 3 The Holy Trinity

For the past couple of weeks we have been looking at the deity of Christ from both the Old Testament and the New Testament views. This week I want to look at the Holy Trinity which is God in three persons: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. On occasion you will hear a person say that the Trinity is just a manmade doctrine and the Bible never uses the term “Trinity”. While it is true that the Bible never uses the term “Trinity”,  the doctrine of the Trinity is found in the Bible. A good definition of the term Trinity is “God eternally exists as three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, each person is fully God, and there is one God.”[1]

In Matthew 28, the passage known as the Great Commission, Jesus gives His disciples their mandate to go out and change the world. He instructs them (and us) to go “baptizing … in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.,”  Notice the fact Jesus does not say to baptize in the names  (plural)  but in the “name of” ( singular) of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Three persons, but one name- God.  Furthermore, Jesus in putting the three together under one name is making all equal. If you went to a baptism and the preacher said “I baptize you in the name of God and myself,” it would immediately jump out as wrong.  Also, in this passage the Holy Spirit is shown as separate and distinct from the Father and Son, but in scripture is He clearly designated as God.  In Acts 5, Peter chastises Ananias saying “why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit…You have not lied to men but to God.”(Vs. 3-4) The use of the singular and plural when it comes to God is seen in the Old Testament as well. In Genesis 1it says “Then God said, ‘Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness.’ ” (vs. 26) Notice the use of God as singular, but then the plural use of “Let Us” and “Our likeness”. 

With all that being said, the Bible clearly and emphatically does not teach polytheism. There are not three gods, there is One God! Deuteronomy 6 says ^“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one!”(vs. 4) There are not three gods; there is One God who eternally exists in three Persons.  We are tempted to dismiss what the Bible teaches about the Trinity because we cannot fully understand One God as three Persons. Though this and many other attributes of God are beyond our human understanding,  I am glad to worship a God that is beyond my finite understanding!

---

[1] Grudem, Wayne, Making Senses of Who God Is, Zondervan 

The Deity of Christ: Part 2

This week I would like to take a look at the deity of Jesus from an Old Testament perspective. In particular, as it pertains to the prophecies about the Messiah (or Christ). Most people think of the deity of the Messiah as a New Testament concept, but the Old Testament provides several instances where the Messiah is seen to be more than a man, in fact God. I will look at just three.

1. The Messiah is descendant of David, but He is also his Lord. In Psalm 110:1 David says “The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at My right hand, Till I make Your enemies Your footstool.” The Messiah was indeed from the line of David, but David does something that goes against cultural norms for his time. He calls his descendant his Lord. In a patriarchal society it was the older that was always superior. This is the exact Psalm and line of reasoning that Jesus uses in Matthew 22:41-46 to stump the Pharisees. As Jesus says “⁴⁵ If David then calls Him ‘Lord,’ how is He his Son?” Jesus’s point is that the Messiah, although from the line of David, is the Son of God.

2. The Messiah’s origins were to be from “everlasting.” Micah 5:2 prophesies “But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, Though you are little among the thousands of Judah, Yet out of you shall come forth to Me The One to be Ruler in Israel, Whose goings forth are from of old, From everlasting.” Out of the tribe of Judah and the town of Bethlehem would come the One who would rule Israel. This prophecy says that the Messiah would be from “everlasting.” If a Messiah is coming and He is from “everlasting”, what does that say about Him? It says that He is eternal.

3. The Messiah is the Mighty God. Maybe one of the most famous Messianic prophecies is Isaiah 9:6.  “For unto us a Child is born, Unto us a Son is given;
And the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called
Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” There is a lot said in this verse about who the Messiah was to be, but the one thing I would like to key in on is that it says that the Messiah is to be “Mighty God!” That says it all. If you want to put a finer point on it, you could ask, “How is the Messiah Mighty God to come?” Not only does this verse prophesy that the Messiah will be Mighty God, but also that He will come as a “Child,” a “Son”.  You have both God and the incarnation in one verse!

These are just three verses from the Old Testament about the Messiah. The Old Testament says that the Messiah is to be a descendant of David but superior to David. It says that the Messiah would come from Bethlehem, but be from “Everlasting.”  It tells us a Child would be born to us, a Son, who is indeed “Mighty God.” The deity of Christ is not something that was made up in the New Testament, but prophesied over 900 years before Jesus came to Earth. 

Deity Of Christ

²⁴ Now Thomas, called the Twin, one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. ²⁵ The other disciples therefore said to him, “We have seen the Lord.” So he said to them, “Unless I see in His hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe.” ²⁶ And after eight days His disciples were again inside, and Thomas with them. Jesus came, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, “Peace to you!” ²⁷ Then He said to Thomas, “Reach your finger here, and look at My hands; and reach your hand here, and put it into My side. Do not be unbelieving, but believing.” ²⁸ And Thomas answered and said to Him, “My Lord and my God!” ²⁹ Jesus said to him, “Thomas, because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” John 20:24-29

If you watched the recent mini-series The Bible, you may have noticed that at every chance they could the producers had Thomas essentially saying “I doubt that”.  Of course, Thomas is the skeptic because Thomas doubted Jesus’s resurrection until he saw it for himself. However, upon seeing Jesus, Thomas’s confession was right on. When Thomas laid eyes on the risen Christ, his reaction was to say “My Lord and my God!” affirming not only His lordship, but the deity of Jesus.  

There are people who may doubt the deity of Christ, as well as cults that outright deny it. What do these people believe about Jesus? They usually will say that He was a good teacher, a prophet, or an angel.  The problem here is that Jesus did not correct Thomas when he called Him “God”. Good people, prophets, and angels in the Bible do not accept worship as God.  In Acts 10:26, Cornelius falls down at Peter’s feet and Peter immediately corrects him saying, “Stand up; I myself am also a man.” However, the Gospels record time after time as people fell down at Jesus’s feet and worshiped Him.  In Revelation 22, John fell down at the feet of an angel; the angel’s reply was “⁹ See that you do not do that. For I am your fellow servant, and of your brethren the prophets, and of those who keep the words of this book. Worship God.”  We are told in Romans 1 that judgment comes to men for worshiping the creature rather than Creator, and God says in Isaiah 42:8 “ My glory I will not give to another”. Because these Biblical truths, good people, prophets, and angels would never receive worship and allow themselves to be referred to as “my God”.

When Thomas saw Jesus and said “My Lord and My God”, Jesus did not correct him.  Jesus affirmed the truth by saying “Thomas, because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” Believe in Jesus as your Lord and your God and be blessed!