The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe…
"Always To Pray"
Part 6 - "The Cost"
"Men ought always to pray, and not to faint."
(Luke 18:1)
No more motivating truth and reality regarding prayer exists than the cost that makes possible our access to God.
"He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him" (II Corinthians 5:21).
Only the righteous can approach God and have fellowship with Him. This would seem to present the greatest of dilemmas to the human heart, whose "righteousnesses are as filthy rags" in the sight of the Lord (Isaiah 64:6). Job realized this and raised one of the great questions of human existence: "How shall a man be just (righteous) with God?" (Job 9:2). How can imperfection attain to the spiritual and moral perfection required to know and relate to One possessed of a purity of holiness that undid a prophet, and cast an apostle to his face when presented with God's direct presence?
"In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple… Then said I, Woe is me, for I am undone" (Isaiah 6:1; 5).
"When I saw Him, I fell at His feet as dead" (Revelation 1:17).
In terms of prayer, by all rights we seem barred from even the remotest possibility of being received and heard by God. By all of Christ's righteousness, however, our Heavenly Father gladly receives all who come to Him enrobed by the freely given justification made possible by the price our Lord paid to secure it.
Made to be sin, who knew no sin,
Christ nailed to a cross, forsaken!
Made to be righteous because of Him.
We wear His robe, He bore our sin!
We can pray with confidence because, and only because the Lord Jesus prayed on the cross of Calvary, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" (Matthew 27:46). We are "accepted in the Beloved" because the Beloved was "smitten of God" (Ephesians 1:6; Isaiah 53:4). Every received and answered communication with God by human hearts flows to the throne of grace upon the flowing river of our Savior's blood shed for us so that His righteousness might be shed upon us. Our Father receives us because He rejected His Son "made to be sin for us" on the cross of Calvary. "Thou shalt make His soul an offering for sin" (Isaiah 53:10).
Nothing will more motivate the believer to avail ourselves of so great a gift as prayer than the growing realization of the cost that makes such grace possible. We will not always consciously think of this as we pray. However, the truth must reside deeply within us as a subterranean stream of abiding awareness. We may "come boldly unto the throne of grace" because the Lord Jesus journeyed willingly to the cross where His sacrifice purchased our access (Hebrews 4:16). The remembrance, be it surface or subterranean, will keep our hearts in a place of wonder and humility that leads us to the only throne of Heaven - the Throne of grace - we can approach in assurance of being received.
A trail of Blood graces the path
leading to the throne,
where God receives the trusting heart
approaching by His Son.
Without the cross, there could not be
this access freely known.
Without such sorrow, pain, and loss,
we'd have nowhere to go.
Yes, every prayer flows to the Throne
on flood tides of Christ's blood.
We come with grateful, trusting hope,
in wonder of such love…
A trail of Blood graces the path leading to the Throne.
"Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God."
(Romans 5:1-2)
Weekly Memory Verse
Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
(Romans 5:1-2)
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