By:
RVC Shepherd
Greetings brothers.
I do not intend, at least on this occasion, to make an in-depth
study regarding prayer, but to show some basic rules that we have
been altering for not knowing how to read the word of God in harmony with the
laws or rules of hermeneutics.
It is important that we learn to converse correctly with our
Father according to what He really wants us to talk to him and not what we want
to speak to him.
Let's see this under the environment of an earthly family life:
A) A son talks to his parents and says very nice and correct
things, but for this he always looks for an audience, an audience, that is,
when there are visits in the house, so that people “see” the good and
wonderful. that he is with his parents, but when he is alone with
them he never sees them again.
Would they be in the same mind?
B) Or perhaps a son speaks to the physical father in private: the
son comes from another city and needs to do it
quickly. He calls his father to a room and there he begins to recite nice
words that he wrote in his notebook. He reads them once but the son heard
them so beautiful when he recited them that he repeats them over and over again
and finally says them by heart to his father. The father looks in
disbelief and dismay at the coldness of his son.
Is there harmony?
C) A son goes with his parent to a land that the family has where
they want to build the family home. Both talk about the house must have
two floors, possible colors for the external and internal walls, the size of
the kitchen, the number of bedrooms required since it is the father, the mother
and four children all as a preliminary analysis to expose it to the rest of
the members. However, the son at that moment stares at his father and
explains that he wishes that the second floor should be only for him because he
has many friends and wishes that they meet there and that the first floor would
be sufficient for the kitchen, the bathroom , the bedroom for his
parents and a bedroom for his other three brothers.
I ask: Are the father and son in the same mind?
In these three events we have not the slightest doubt that we can
have a value judgment for each of those children. We can easily
say that this is a child not truly connected through love to his
father in each of those three distinct events, and yes, he really
is. But now we must ask ourselves: do we look like any of these children
when we talk to Heavenly Father or ... the three of us?
Let's review a little what we have been doing carelessly that
causes us to relate badly to the Sovereign and Only God:
We have indeed been carelessly using some biblical passages
incorrectly when it comes to initiating a conversation with the Creator.
FIRST ERROR:
Believe , based on Matthew 18:20, that we must be at least
two people together in order to pray to God. In this passage Jesus Christ
tells us that "where two or more are gathered in my name, there I will be
in their midst."
We are used to saying, when there is a group of people gathered,
that group should take advantage to open a moment of prayer using this Biblical
passage.
For a moment I ask you to analyze what we are really saying.
We are affirming with this that secretly, alone with God, it is
not possible to pray, that alone with God He does not listen to us and that we
would be wasting time because the prayer must be when we are at least two
people gathered.
If we study Matthew 18:15 to 22 we will realize that the whole
context where Matthew 18:20 is inserted refers to the subject of two brothers
in Christ who are estranged because one offended the other, where Jesus Christ
gives a series advice to fix each other consisting of first dialogue, and if
this does not work then at least two people who help the approach and if not
possible with the hierarchy of the church. It is for that theme of
brotherly reconciliation that Jesus Christ tells us that he will be in their
midst longing for brotherly reconciliation.
It is only under this theme of reconciliation that Jesus Christ
will be in the middle, for for all the other effects of our life he will walk
not in the middle but with us as a team with his two oxen where He is the
leading ox. If Jesus Christ walks with us we can be without brothers near
and He will be there but if we believe that He walks in our midst it is because
we believe that Jesus Christ would be with us only if we remain close to some
brother. If this were so, a Christian could not live alone on a mountain
because he would be without God. This is of course totally false.
Of course, as a group we can pray without a doubt, but the Father
who is in heaven will hear the prayer not in a group but the one that comes
from each one of the praying people, because God is always attentive to what
comes from each heart individually considered. He listens to your heart
specifically and closely, and never sees a group pray from above. Within
that group there will be people who will not be praying or their prayers will
only come out of their mouth and therefore will not reach the
Creator. What God does long for is a group in prayer where everyone has
the same feeling, the same heart and the same goal, but for our Heavenly Father
to love that group is because he has reviewed the heart of each one of them and
their secret prayer and you have seen it with pleasure.
In group prayer every Christian should pray secretly with his
Heavenly Father. In Matthew 6: 6 Jesus clearly tells us that all prayer
must be in secret.
SECOND ERROR:
Matthew 6: 7 also tells us that we cannot be like that son
who began to give words of encouragement to his father through a series of
repetitions taken from his notebook. We cannot pray through vain
repetitions because if that earthly father was offended by what his son did by repeating
what he had inserted in his notebook, how much more will the King of the
Universe be offended when we speak vain
repetitions.
THIRD ERROR:
Let us remember that in one of the stories of an earthly father
with his son, the latter took pains to ask for the entire second floor of the
house to be built for him and his friends. Can we ask everything we can
think of as this son did to his father? Some people believe that it is so
based on the passage from Matthew 7: 7 to 12.
Let's see the text:
Prayer and the Golden Rule 7 »Ask, and it will be given to
you, seek, and you will find, knock, and it will be opened to you. 8For
everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds and opens to him who
knocks. 9 Which of you, if your son asks you for bread, gives him a
stone? 10Or if he asks for a fish, does he give him a snake? 11For if
you, who are bad, know how to give good things to your children, how much more
will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him! 12So,
whatever you want people to do to you, do the same to them, because this
summarizes the law and the prophets.
The word says then:
"Ask and it will be given
to you ... because the one who asks receives" ... and that
text is usually enough to give even a whole preaching of prosperity without
continuing to read the full text.
Let us carefully analyze Matthew 7: 9 to 12: “What is your
father that if his son asks him for bread he will give him
a stone… or a fish and he will give him a snake… and in the parallel
passage of Luke chapter 11 he also tells us how is that a father would give his
son a scorpion if he asks for an
egg.
Sometimes it occurs to us to start paraphrasing these passages,
perhaps like this: What is there among you that if your son, for example, asks
you for bread, he would give you a piece of wood, or a brick, or perhaps a
seashell; but this text does not allow that kind of
paraphrasing. The relationship “bread-stone”, “egg-scorpion”
(in the passage said in Luke) and “fish-snake” is specifically spoken of .
Why did Jesus Christ use such specific
relationships? Because in the eastern lands where Jesus Christ walked a
reddish stone from the desert it looks like
a bread roll , because in the desert there are white
scorpions that when rolled up take a shape identical to that of a chicken egg
and because in the Sea of Galilee when fishermen used a
net called a sweeper they took out many sea animals, among which were electric
eels also called sea snakes which look a lot like a fish.
And we ask ourselves then:
But ... if a person is born in that area of the Middle East and grows there, how is it not going to
differentiate a bread from a stone, an egg from a scorpion and an eel or snake
from a fish?
At four years old a child could already make a difference. So
who would make such a mistake? Well… the answer is at hand: only very
young children under the age of four.
Already understanding this we have the complete and clear message
of Matthew 7: 7 to 12: Ask and it will be given to you ... ( I
will paraphrase) but never ask as a two-year-old boy who thinks he is asking for
bread and really what he sees in the desert They are reddish stones, or ask the
father for an egg because he sees a scorpion with his body collected, or ask
the father for a fish because he sees an eel or sea serpent. .. Because if
you ask for something you believe is bread it will hurt your teeth and you
could even drown, or if you ask for something you believe is an egg it will
sting and kill you because really what you are asking for is a scorpion ...
when you ask for something you must have taking care to ask for what you really
need for your spiritual good. Doesn't Heavenly Father want us to be truly
connected to Him when it comes to what the Kingdom of God truly is? Do you
not long for a private conversation that is not repetitive but comes from our hearts
and where what we ask for is in accordance with the supernatural area to which
we are rising? Doesn't our Father want us to seek the Kingdom of God
and His justice and if we do, He promises us to care in this world with
the material things that we need day by day? He who truly lives according
to the Spirit asks for spiritual things and the earthly asks for earthly things
(Romans 8: 5).
It is not that we should be poor because if by mere justice we
strive we can have some goods here on earth, but we do not yearn for the things
we have for mere justice (we have them because we strive and God therefore
allows it) but we yearn for things. that God gives us by mercy (gifts,
ministries and fruits of the Holy Spirit which we have not earned but God
considers in his immense love that we deserve them) and even more the things
that God gives by Grace (Eternal Life which neither We have not won
or deserve it, but God gives it to us because that is how He pleases.)
And to conclude , in Matthew 6: 9 in the
prayer called "The Our Father" Jesus Christ explains that this prayer
is done only by everyone who is already a child of God, who has already been
born again and therefore has the Holy Spirit. and you can say to the Creator of
Heaven and Earth "Father". That child of God must be a deserving son to be called a son and
to be able to say to the only and Wise God "Father" and to be
deserving he must long for the presence of his Father in his life through
constant prayer in secret, a son that he converse with the Father
(God) as he would converse with his father ( the earthly father) and
a son who never asks him for more than he needs, who does not ask for a second
floor of the house all for himself but when he converses with God think of all
your brothers.
The prayer that is in Matthew 6: 9 onwards is a centered prayer so
that we learn to think about all our brothers in all the earth, that is why it
does not say my Father but our Father, it does not say give me daily bread but
give us the daily bread does not say forgive my sins but forgive our
sins. This prayer is for a child of God who remembers when he prays in all
the brothers of all the earth ... so that later and within the same
prayer and through that same love we can ask for all humanity (I Timothy
2: 2 ).
The Father who is in Heaven yearns for your prayer in secret,
without vain repetitions, he loves to hear us think of all our brothers from
all over the earthly world and he enjoys talking to you in the same language,
in the true spiritual dimension.
And if you are reading this little message and you realize that
you cannot converse with the Creator of all things because you are not yet a
child of God, do not think that with a five-minute declaration of faith you
already are, but the good news is that in accordance with Romans 10: 9 your
declaration that Christ is Lord and your recognition that he rose on the third
day may become something so enormous in your life that it begins to overflow
from your heart and you want to declare it loudly .
Remember that the Holy Spirit comes into your life not by your
decision but by God's own decision when noticing that your interior is ordered
and empty waiting for Him. God offers you that opportunity to change radically
and you can experience that beautiful change that you never you will regret.
Romans 10: 8-10:
8 More what does it say? Near you is the word, in
your mouth and in your heart. This is the word of faith that we
preach: 9 that if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and
believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be
saved. 10 For with the heart one believes for righteousness, but with the
mouth one confesses for salvation.
It is not difficult to accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, it
only requires that we begin to be sensitive to the things of the Kingdom and
long for his presence. If you are not a child of God, bend your knee and
start accepting Jesus Christ as your personal Savior until that belief becomes
part of your life, that is, that Jesus Christ becomes your friend.
Prayer to the Father will come later because NOBODY GOES TO THE
FATHER BUT IT IS THROUGH HIS BELOVED SON JESUS CHRIST.
AMEN!
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