.... Of Humility and Pride in Prayer
By Br Edward Tomola
The parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector in Luke Chapter 18 vs 9-14 makes sober reading. It gives us great spiritual insight about who we have to be before God when we pray.
When we pray we are talking to God, our father. When we pray we are justified before God. God looks into us, he looks at or into our hearts and says, when my child approaches me whose righteousness do they present.
Some people make mistakes and confuse approaching the throne of grace with confidence and approaching God “in their own righteousness” and scorn everyone.
A case in point is point is Luke Chapter 18 vs 9-14 in full:
“Jesus also told this parable to the people who were sure of their own goodness and despised everybody else. Once there were two men who went up to the temple to pray, one was a Pharisee, the other a tax collector.
The Pharisee stood apart by himself and prayed “I thank you, God, that I am not greedy, dishonest, or an adulterer, like everybody else. I thank you that I am not like that tax collector over there. I fast two days a week, and I give you a tenth of all my income”.
“But the tax collector stood at a distance and would not even raise his face to heaven, but beat on his breast and said, “God have mercy on me a sinner! I tell you, said Jesus, “ the tax collector and not the Pharisee was in the right with God when he went home. For all who make themselves great will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be made great”.
We learn great lessons above namely:
Let us not become too familiar with and arrogant before God believing in our own righteousness.
Being schooled in prayer like the confident Pharisee and speaking in big confident words does not amount to real prayer.
In the words of one author “words alone are not prayer”. Temple going alone or church going alone is not prayer.
Self praise like that of the Pharisee is useless or worthless. Divine promise and blessings come from God when we humble ourselves and believe in the righteousness of God.
Today let us all repent of self praise. Today let us approach the throne of grace and pray the tax collector’s prayer “God, have mercy on me, a sinner”, and we shall see the move of God in our lives.
David, a man who took another man’s wife and committed murder, is acclaimed for being a man after Gods own heart because he had a heart to show contrition, repent and trust in and ask for Gods mercy.
May God help us, “for those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted. Amen! And Amen.
O God Do not be deaf! It sounds not only ridiculous but rude to ask God not to be deaf. It may sound blasphemous or heretic to tell the Almighty God, Jehovah, the God with no beginning or end not to be deaf. It is not me who first joined this cry or statement.
Psalm 83, like all the Psalms is loaded with a plan to God to come to the aid of his people. Psalm Chapter 83 vs 1-3 reads “O God, do not be silent! Do not be deaf. Do not be quiet O God.
Don’t you hear the uproar of your enemies?. Don’t you see that your arrogant enemies are rising up?.
Today my brothers and sisters you may be in your hour of need and wondering like the Psalmist why God is silent, why he is deaf and why he is quiet!
The enemies are conspiring against your health, against your finances, against your family, against your family – to wipe you out. It gets worse, the enemies are signing treaties against you making unanimous decisions against you seeking to destroy even your “very meaning”.
Your legacy is going up in smoke and it is not one enemy. They are many old and new ones. What God had given you in the past the enemy is seizing the same.
I tell you to day that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the Holy one of Israel, the God of hosts will beginning now, scatter your enemies “like chaff before the wind”.
When God rises to the defence of his prayerful children who call upon his name, the enemies shall be scattered like tumble-will , as a fire burns a forest, and as a flame sets the mountains ablaze.
Your enemies, if you may, shall soon have nowhere to run. When Jesus Christ confronted the devils and demons in Mathew Chapter 8 vs 28-32 they begged for mercy and begged to go into the pigs which could not have the demons either and went straight over the cliff into the water and died.
Today the devils shall have no abode in your house, family, workplace, business and body. Its game over for them. The arrogance must stop. The day of reckoning has come. So God has and is inclining his ear to you and he will utterly disgrace the enemies. Let them be ashamed and terrified forever and they will die in disgrace.
The reason why God will not be deaf today is so that He alone can be glorified. It is that the enemies of his children must submit to His name.
The Psalmist concludes by saying the enemies must know that He alone is God and is the most High and is supreme over all the earth.
Whatever situation you are in today go to Psalms 83 and pray in faith that God inclines his ear to you and shatters your enemies dreams and exalts his Holy name and establishes his power in Jesus name as the most High and Supreme over all the earth.
Amen and Amen.
