PRAYER FOCUS

I Was Just Thinking About – PRAYER FOCUS.

Yesterday, I posted in a FB panel the following: “The only valid way to pray is, I Timothy 2:5, For there is ONE GOD and ONE MEDIATOR between God and man, the man Jesus Christ.” In response to this was the following: “Question, (asked by a person named Jessica), “if someone is dead does that mean we can’t ask them to pray for us? Asking for prayers is only ok if the person we are asking is alive?” 

Today, I responded with the following: Jesus said: "If you ask anything in MY NAME, I will do it." See: John 14:13-14. Praying in a dead person's name is both disobedience and blasphemy. It is substituting a person, or elevating a person, to the status of the Godhead, Is this a serious matter? Absolutely! “To address Jessica's statement, you should not be praying in a dead or living person’s name, is this, too, a serious matter? Absolutely.

Many Scriptures state that. One of them is Isaiah 48:11 where the Lord indicated, "For my own sake, I do this. How can I let myself be defamed? I will not yield my glory to another." Then, you also have the sticky wicket known as the Ten Commandments - Exodus 20:3-6, "You shall have no other gods before me. “You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments." There's more - but these are some foundational truths that should never be compromised or disobeyed.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus shared this prayer perspective, Matthew 7:7-11, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened. Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? So, if you who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!” In Matthew 6:5-11 (The Lord's Prayer), there are these points of emphasis: “This, then, is how you should pray: OUR FATHER IN HEAVEN, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, YOUR WILL BE DONE, on earth as it is in heaven…”

When you pray, you have a choice. You either follow God’s Word and pray to The Father in Heaven through Jesus Christ the Redeemer, Advocate, Intercessor, Mediator – or – some living or dead person designated by tradition or ritual and blaspheme and/or disobey the Godhead and Scriptures. Make the correct and wise choice. A familiar Hymn, To God Be The Glory summarizes these points in its refrain: “O come to the Father, through Jesus the Son, and give Him the glory, great things he has done.”

Prayerfully – consider these things with me.