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When
we consider how we are to pray, there are two glowing examples in the
New
Testament that we need to consider.
One
is Christ, Himself, the other, the apostle Paul.
We
don’t have to dwell very long on Christ’s example for all agree that He
had
only one option regarding Who to direct His
prayers to. It was to His Father that He
prayed, as I’m
sure all will agree. But Who did Paul
direct his prayers to, Jesus or
The Father?
Paul’s
prayers were addressed to Father God rather than to Christ, and he
qualifies
the term “God” as “the Father our Lord,
Jesus Christ”. (Romans 15:6, etc.) This is the way that the Fatherhood of God
expresses itself for him. This means
that
Paul’s prayers issued forth with his realization from what was revealed
to
him on the Damascus Road, ie., that Jesus has
reconciled us with His Father,
and through our bond of faith in Christ, we become sons of His Father
in and by
The Holy
Spirit, Who was given to all believers by The Son, after His
resurrection. This, understandably,
makes Christ our Elder
Brother. This is
why, like Jesus, Paul says to God, “Abba, Father”.
We, along with Jesus, enter into the prayer
of Jesus
and express ourselves like Jesus, for Jesus now lives in and through
us by His Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit
that places within
us the knowledge of the spirit of union and sonship.
“Because ye are sons, God has sent the Spirit
of His Son into our hearts,
crying, ‘Abba, Father’.”. (Galatians 4:6 and Romans
8:14) God hears our prayers within us,
through
His Spirit.
We
relate to God, the Father, through our Advocate, Jesus Christ, by His
Spirit in
us. (Colossians 3:17)
So, essentially, by
the Spirit, Christ is in
us as we pray. We, therefore, pray to
the Father with the character of Christ (His Name means His Char-
acter). The more we take on the Mind of
Christ (as in
Philippians 2:5), the more our old character falls away and is replaced
by His
Character (His Name). So praying in His
Name is not making sure to mention the Name Yahshua at the end of each
prayer,
but simply praying to Abba Father with our new creation Christ-like
character
that is now being formed in us. When
someone ends a public prayer with, “We come to You Father God and ask
all these
things in the Name of Yahshua the Messiah”,
it usually indicates that they
either don’t understand true New Testament Christianity with regards to
who
they now are in union
with Yahshua, in them – or they know it with their mind,
but haven’t yet experienced it in their heart.
Usually, when I hear such an
ending to public prayer I sense the
petitioner is speaking by rote and making sure to cover all his, or
her, bases
by not leaving
Jesus out of the formula.
Sincere prayer by a person who knows who he or she is in Christ
usually
comes forth with words like,
“My Father Yahweh, I come before Your Presence in
the Spirit realm, as your child, through the Holy Spirit of adoption
that tells
me I am Yahshua, in me – so now, united with my Lord, I boldly approach
Your
throne of Grace”. This, to me, is the
only way we
are to properly make known our petitions to God. People
who have not yet been baptized with
The Spirit of truth about Christ in
them will tend to speak a language of
separation. God is over or up there, and
Jesus is out there or in heaven. They
will even
gesture with their hands and point skyward, or raise their eyes and
head upward. But the covenant we are a
part of is a covenant
of union – God in us and us in Him. So, in
essence, we can learn a lot about a
person by observing and listening to how they relate
to and about God in
public.