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When he talks about prayer, Calvin emphasizes that everything in Scripture encourages us to pray. Our condition encourages us to pray: We have no good in ourselves, no hope for salvation in our own efforts; and therefore we must seek help from outside ourselves. The gift of Jesus encourages us to pray: God has freely offered Himself to us through His Son, and commands us to seek everything good only in Him.
Prayer is the natural and necessary expression of true faith. On the other hand, Calvin says, "a faith unaccompanied by prayer to God cannot be genuine."
Necessary as prayer is, Scripture does not allow us to isolate it from the rest of our lives.
Scripture does not treat prayer as a talisman, as protective magic. We can cancel our prayers with our lives.
Jesus gave wonderful promises, but gave them to those who "abide" in Him. James says that we ask and do not receive because "you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures." Peter reminds husbands our prayers can be hindered if we don't treat our wives with understanding and honor. The Proverbs says, "The LORD is far from the wicked, but He hears the prayer of the righteous" (Prov. 15:29), and Jeremiah severely condemned the Jews of His day because they thought their prayers and sacrifices would be accepted even though they spent their weekdays oppressing the alien and orphan, shedding innocent blood, and following other gods.
If your experience with prayer is one of constant frustration and ineffectiveness; if it seems that the Lord is distant and unresponsive, take a few simple tests: Are you abiding in Jesus by obeying His command to love one another? Why do you want what you're asking for? How are you treating your wife? Examine yourself, and repent.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Sunday, August 06, 2006 at 07:51 AM
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