Drawn Into The Gospel Includes Suffering

Zach posted this quote, and the more I hear about A Praying Life, the more I desire to read it.

Doug Wolter:

Paul Miller’s book, A Praying Life, has affected me deeply. I cannot recommend it to you highly enough. Here’s one section that grabbed a hold of me and hasn’t let go for days. Next to this quote in the side margin of my book I wrote, “need to meditate on this.”

Whenever you love, you reenact Jesus’ death. Consequently, gospel stories always have suffering in them. American Christianity has an allergic reaction to this part of the gospel. We’d love to hear about God’s love for us, but suffering doesn’t mesh with our right to “the pursuit of happiness.” So we pray to escape a gospel story, when that is the best gift the Father can give us.

The Father wants to draw us into the story of his Son. He doesn’t have a better story to tell, so he keeps retelling it in our lives. As we reenact the gospel, we are drawn into a strange kind of fellowship. The taste of Christ is so good that the apostle Paul told the Philippians that he wanted to know “the fellowship of sharing in [Jesus'] sufferings” (Phil. 3:10).

He Hears Our Pleas, Because Of Who He Is

“For we do not present our pleas before you because of our righteousness, but because of your great mercy.” Daniel 9:18b

How often do I approach the throne of Grace in prayer with a heart that does not understand the weight of what I am doing. I am going before the King of the Universe, not a bank teller, not a Santa Claus at the mall, but how I so treat it that way. I often flippantly throw up some prayers that suggest I am talking to another man, maybe a respected man so I show some level of reverence, but not the level that should go to the King of Kings!

Just thinking through what Daniel is saying here. The reason we can come to God and not only do we not get destroyed, but he listens to us as a Father listens to a child is because of His mercy. And with our New Testament lenses on we can see that this great mercy ultimately was showcased in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, fully man and fully God, God in flesh.

We can come to our Father in Heaven and know he hears because he forsook his Son in our place. We come and do not face wrath because his Son took it for us. For Daniel it was the sacrifices of animals that shadowed a Greater Sacrifice to come.

Put simply we can come before our God, and He hears our pleas because of Jesus. We come because of His great mercy and love that shine brightly from the cross. His Mercy. His Love. His Grace.

That has to change how we think about how we pray and why we can pray and know that our pleas are heard!!

John Piper: Prayer is Not a Butler Bell

I love this analogy and it has revolutionized the way I pray and think about prayer. Seriously, John Piper is the coolest uncool guy I know of!