Praying In New Clothes

Praying in New Clothes

All who have been united with Christ in baptism have put on Christ, like putting on new clothes. Galatians 3:27

PEOPLE WHO SPEND ENOUGH TIME in a different culture begin to reflect its ways. They think, talk, eat, dress, and behave like the people of that culture. Missionaries sometimes demonstrate this when they return home to speak; they dress in the style of their new culture in order to represent it to their old. As citizens adopted into the Kingdom of God, we take on its culture as our own to an even greater degree. We become like the King in order to represent his Kingdom to the world we came out of.

That’s essentially what Paul told his readers. By believing in Jesus, we don’t have to stress and strain to become like Jesus in our own strength. We simply put him on. We wear him around because his Spirit is in us and we are in him. We clothe ourselves in Jesus and then live out the part. Over time, this new life becomes as natural as being immersed in a new culture. His nature is available to us not just one day in the future but now, where we are.

That has profound implications not only for the ways we think and live but also for how we pray. In our prayers for our own spiritual growth, it means that we can go ahead and step into the new nature we’ve been praying for. It may be instinctual to pray, “God, please do this . . . ,” but much of the gospel is an emphatic statement of what God has already done. We need not ask him to give things that have already been given. We just receive them and wear them around like new clothes.

In our prayers for what God hasn’t done yet, whether in our lives or in the lives of others, it means that we enter into the heavenly conversation already happening. Remember that we are praying with the Father, Son, and Spirit, not just to them. Jesus and the Holy Spirit are interceding. When we learn to listen to God’s voice, we discover what to pray in advance. We bring our requests to him, clothed in Christ. And he always hears the voice of his Son.

The essence of prayer does not consist in asking God for something but in opening our hearts to God, speaking with Him, and living with Him in perpetual communion.