Surveys show that although a very small percentage of our population attend church, and even a smaller percentage read their Bible, over three quarters of the people pray. Now that’s surprising since, when asked, nothing like seventy five percent of the population believe in God! One wonders – to whom do these unbelievers pray? The brilliant Bertrand Russell said something like: ‘It’s the praying that matters, not the one you to whom you pray’, and Dr. A. J. Gossip reading it declared it to be a contender for the first prize in the contest for the most stupid statement ever written; and I add, ‘Here, here!’. The opposite is true. It’s not the praying – it’s the One to whom you pray that makes all the difference. Christians pray to the one whom Jesus called ‘Father’ – Jesus taught his followers to pray to ‘Our Father in heaven’. So although God is not some elderly bearded gent upstairs – he is a person – what philosophers call Supra-Personal. He made us persons, and it is that bit of us which no matter how defaced and fallen must pray. Why do we pray?
The first answer is ‘We can’t help it’, but there are a lot of urges deep within us that we have to learn how to develop and refine and practice in order to learn how to use them. Of course it matters to whom you pray. That’s why Jesus told his followers to pray ‘in his name’. That means in presence of: our minds filled with the picture of Jesus, and as ‘wedded to Him’. I can’t picture the vast, holy, creator of the universe, and Eternal Lord of time and space of heaven and earth, but when I look at the face of Jesus, I see God. Thus all Christian prayer is through Jesus Christ our Lord. Listen to the most wonderful promise, and most difficult thing Jesus said to us about prayer in John 14: 12-14:
I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.
A Prayer: Today, Lord, teach us to pray truly ‘in your name’, believing that what you said is true.
Now read Luke 10: 1-24