Skip to main content

Crucifying our prayers: praying for God’s will and glory over our own comfort

This continues my series on the cross of Christ and prayer. I previously posted on how the cross of Christ gives us access to God in prayer, and how the cross shapes our prayers in praying for other over ourselves.

It’s not necessarily wrong to pray about worldly concerns. Paul says not to be anxious about anything, but to pray about everything (Php 4:6) – including “ordinary” things like illness, exams, and work hassles. We pray to the sovereign Lord of the universe (Is 40:12-31), who feeds the birds and clothes the grass, who knows what we need (Matt 6:25-34); who created, owns and controls all the resources of the world (Ps 50:10-12; Haggai 2:8); and who governs everything for the good of those who love him (Rom 8:28-30).

But, we must be careful not to be self-obsessed and self-pitying in these prayers. Jesus went to the cross in obedience to the Father, at great personal cost (Is 52:13-53:12; Matt 26:36-46 & parallels [Gethsemane]; Php 2:5-11). He didn’t receive his reward in this world; he only received it in his glorious resurrection, which prefigures the new creation (Php 2:5-11).

Similarly, we must be focused first on God, not ourselves. The first three declarations in the Lord’s Prayer are directed towards God (Matt 6:9-10). Only after that do we turn to our own needs (Matt 6:11-13).
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A better understanding of nonbelief

The Nones Project is an ongoing study into the belief systems of people who call themselves non-religious. A few weeks ago one of the project leaders,  Ryan Burge  of Washington University,  posted some really interesting preliminary results  on his Substack.  1. We've probably heard of people who are spiritual but not religious (SBNRs). SBNRs were "the largest group of nones" in the sample. They believe in the supernatural realm but not necessarily in "a God." They are "deeply skeptical of religion but highly interested in spirituality," therefore individualistic and anti-institutional.  2. But this study differentiated SBNRs from people they called Nones In Name Only, NiNos. They different to SBNRs by being religious about their spiritual. They believe not just in the supernatural but in "God." And they tend to engage in traditional communal religious practices while SBNRs practice individualised eclectic bespoke spiritual practices. The s...
Post a Comment
Read more

The different distractions of secularity and spirituality

There has been a lot of discussion about the recent 'vibe shift' away from radical atheism back towards an openness to the supernatural. I don't think this new spirituality is necessarily an openness to the unique claims of Christ. It will more probably replace one set of commonly-accepted misunderstandings about Jesus with another.  Under radical atheism, people dismissed the Biblical claims about Jesus' resurrection because they 'knew' that it was impossible. Jesus hadn't really died. He just passed out (after being beaten and whipped and crucified) and then woke up in the tomb (and rolled away the stone himself and overcame several guards). Or the disciples hallucinated that they saw him (even though Jewish beliefs of the time didn't expect one person to rise possessing eternal life himself; they expected a general resurrection at the end of time - see John 11:24 ). Or something else.  The so-called 'explanations' of Jesus' non-resurrectio...
Post a Comment
Read more
TGC Australia recently published an analysis by Dr Sarah Quicke of whether we are experiencing a 'quiet revival' of interest in and/or conversion to Christianity  here in Australia. It does it a good job of describing the difficulties involved in both gathering and interpreting data about religious beliefs and behaviours, e.g. the difference between the 44% who (still) call themselves Christian and the 8% of people aged 18-35 who actually "believed and lived out the gospel."  Quicke refers to the very insightful McCrindle report An Undercurrent Of Faith , released in March 2025, which uses an analytical method called cohort analysis to try and work out how a particular group of people tend to behave over time. The purpose of this post is to draw attention to one element of that report which agrees with Quicke's analysis but also adds some detail to it.  Here is what the cohort analysis showed about different age groups' identification with Christianity:  As y...
Post a Comment
Read more