The Privilege of Prayer

"Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need." Hebrews 4:14-16

During his sermon Sunday, Pastor Dave quoted the late James Montgomery Boice as having said he estimated only one of every 100 prayers were actually offered to our Lord. This statement might initially seem very severe, but as Pastor Dave explained, many prayers are erroneously offered to idols, dead "saints", Mary, angels, etc. Then other prayers are made in the public arena (government, sporting events, conventions, even Christian events) where the intended audience is really men, not God (who are we trying to impress?). Finally, even we Christians sometimes fall into rote or trite prayers that do not really appropriate the riches of God's grace available to us in Christ.

God invites His children to "come boldly to the throne of grace." Jerry Bridges states, "We need to remember that it was God Himself who presented Jesus as the atonement for our sins, as the One who satisfied the justice of God and by that satisfaction turned aside God's wrath from us. And because of Jesus' atoning sacrifice, God's throne is no longer a throne of judgment and wrath for us, but is now a throne of grace." (Transforming Grace, p. 173) And when we come into the very presence of God, we must remember that God is indeed the source of all grace (divine enabling power) and Jesus is our Great High Priest. He has gone before us and is even now interceding on our behalf. Jesus can sympathize with our weaknesses because He was tempted in every human way, but was without sin. Beyond that, He endured being forsaken by His Heavenly Father as He bore the punishment for our sins. Whatever pain or trials we are going through, we have the confidence that Jesus understands and cares for us. It's amazing to realize that because we are in Christ, we are invited to have a private audience with the Most Holy God, and we can bring our petitions to Him. So why do we so often see prayer as a duty rather than the tremendous privilege that it is?