Have you ever heard someone say that sister so-and-so
has a direct line to heaven? I have heard people refer to certain older saints
in awe because they seemed to have a special relationship with God? I must
admit that I have probably had similar thoughts. We tend to think that certain
people have a special relationship with God that no one else can have. Believe
me, it just isn’t that way.
In the Old Testament, it might have been that way.
The Old Covenant required men to bring an animal sacrifice to the priest and
the priest would pray to God for the individual. The average man could not go
into the tabernacle for himself. Only the priests could go into the Holy Place.
Beyond that was an even holier placed called the Holy of Holies; only the High
Priest could go there, and then only once a year. Sorry for the women and
children; they were left out altogether.
Under the New Covenant, thankfully, worship is
completely different. The New Testament teaches that Jesus Christ became the sacrifice
for us (I John 2:2) and that we can all now go directly to God through him
(Hebrews 4:16). All of us can pray to God for ourselves because God has made us
all priests unto himself (I Peter 2:9, Rev 1:6, KJV). None of us is anymore
qualified to pray than anyone else. The door is open to God for us all; the
direct line to heaven is never busy and anyone can use the heavenly line to
make a call to God at any time.
This is not to say that we don’t need the ministry.
The Apostle Paul makes it clear that we do (Ephesians 4:11-13). Neither does it
mean that we don’t need the church. Jesus taught us to bind together with other
believers in prayer (Matthew 18;19); this is probably because it helps to
increase our faith when we know someone is praying with us about a need. My
point is that none of us need feel like we are not worthy to approach God or
good enough to pray to him for ourselves.
I think many people ask grandma to pray because they
know she has a regular prayer life; That is the key. When someone makes pray a
daily discipline it is easy to pray. Someone may not feel like he or she is
worthy to pray because they haven’t prayed in a long time. They might also feel
condemned if they know they have sin in their lives that they haven’t repented
of. This need not stop one from praying. If someone feels convicted or
condemned when he starts to pray, all he needs to do is repent and ask God to
put his sin under the blood of Jesus. Then he is free to pray without guilt
again.
We humans tend to make pray more complicated than it
has to be. Pray is a one on one conversation with God. A prayer life means that
one develops the pattern of daily, consistent prayer. Prayer takes many forms
and each person’s prayer will be different. According to a person’s personality
her prayer may be loud or soft. Some may walk or kneel and pray; some may sit
in their favorite rocking chair and pray. At my house we have a prayer chair.
My wife usually sits in that chair to pray and it has become a special chair.
It doesn’t matter where you pray; it doesn’t matter
when you pray. The important thing is to pray. It does help to have a certain
time each day to call on God. However, prayer is available to us 24/7. If you
want or need to talk to Jesus, you have a direct line to him. Make us of it
today.
Blessings,
Pastor Jones