Prayer Life, Part 1

Luke 18: 9-11 ‘Then Jesus told this story to some who had great self-confidence and scorned everyone else: Two men went to the Temple to pray. One was a Pharisee, and the other was a dishonest tax collector. The proud Pharisee stood by himself and prayed this prayer: 'I thank you, God, that I am not a sinner like everyone else, especially like that tax collector over there! For I never cheat, I don't sin, I don't commit adultery,’

I’ve been re-evaluating my prayer life. If I was to evaluate my prayer life on a scale of 1-10 I’d probably rate it somewhere in the 5 range.  Sometimes I think I knock it out of the park and other times I can just imagine God in heaven saying, ‘really Nancy? Is that all you’ve got today? And you want me to bless what?’

I think there are good prayers and bad prayers. Jesus instructed his disciples how to pray a good pray in Matthew 6. He also instructed us how not to pray in Luke 18.

I use to read Luke 18 and think, what a horrible man the Pharisee is; and I am so thankful that I am nothing like him. If you take away all your preconceived notions about Pharisees and really look at who this particular man is, you’d probably want him in your small group Bible study.  And if you were to look at the tax collector, well, he was the modern day IRS man that knocked on your door only to throw you out on the street because you didn’t pay him! He probably used your hard earned tax dollars for his pleasure too.

So why do we tend to read with such a bent towards liking, approving and wanting to be more like the tax collector?

Well, I am going to leave you here to ponder this while I take a week off to be a girl’s counselor at my church’s annual Bible Camp.

When I return we will look closer at prayer life and why we pray; and is God really interested in how we talk to Him?

Let’s pray. Lord, we come to You with humble and thankful hearts. Humble, because of all the things You do for us in meeting our needs even when we don’t deserve Your love. Thankful, because You sent Your Son Jesus to die on the cross and take away all our sins. Thank you for being a merciful God. In Jesus’ strong Name we pray. Amen.

Until next time~

Blessings, Nancy