New Morning Mercies #121

Prayer is abandoning hope of independent capability and believing that in Christ you’re given everything you need for life and godliness.

Prayer is an act of worship. Prayer is an act of submission. Prayer is an act of obedience. But prayer is also an act of admission. Every instance of prayer is a confession in which I own my condition and embrace my need. Prayer that doesn’t do this may be a religious recitation of some sort, but it ceases to be prayer. In prayer, I confess once again that I won’t ever be what I’m supposed to be and do what I am supposed to do without the forgiving, empowering, and delivering grace of the One to whom I am praying. Prayer decimates my independent self-surety; it puts my utter dependency before my eyes and calls me to cry out for the help that I am so often tempted to deny I need.

No passage gets at this more clearly than Christ’s parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector in Luke 18:9–14:

He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt: “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’ But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”

The tax collector prayed the prayer that should be on the lips of every one of us every time we pray. The mercy for which he cried is the mercy that each of us constantly needs. To reduce prayer to a grocery list of things that you want and think you need not only demeans prayer, but it also demeans the sacrifice of love that the One to whom you are praying made so that you and your prayers would be received. The heart of true prayer is vertical confession, not horizontal desire.

The Pharisee’s prayer was not a prayer at all. He basically raised his head to heaven and said: “Here I am, God. I’m as righteous as I need to be, so I don’t really need your help at the moment.” He was revolted by the thought that he might be as sinful and needy as the low-life tax collector who stood not far from him. Self-righteousness crushes prayer, reducing it to an empty religious recitation spoken by one who sees himself as a grace graduate. Run to Jesus in your poverty and weakness, and know that he is never revolted when you do, but always greets you with arms of grace.

For further study and encouragement: James 5:13–16