This week I am continuing my four-part series on prayer. Last week I introduced prayer as a communication between you and God. Prayer can take many forms, but it is essentially a conversation to have with God.
I stated last week in part one to go to God about everything. Use it as a way of getting to know God, communicating our desires to God, listening to God speak truths to our spirit, voicing our needs for God to help us, observing God in creation and praising Him, sitting with God in our pain and asking Him to comfort us, and expressing our gratitude by thanking God. And you can simply do this by keeping prayer as an open-ended conversation with God. Another important part of prayer is confessing our sins. So the topic this week will be about confession/sin as part of praying. Psalm 103:11-12 reads, “For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us.”
He does remove our transgressions. He cleanses us from our sins through the blood of his son Jesus Christ. We are not perfect. Therefore, we can come to God messy, in our impure, sinful state. C. S. Lewis said confession is like “the threshold of prayer.” We should confess first. Pray and confess for all sins and transgressions, be sorrowful, and ask for help to move away from those sinful ways.
If there is an issue that keeps tripping you up, what do you need to adjust, remove, or add to halp you turn from it?
I know in my life, there have been some things where I seem to keep repeating. I prayed to God for guidance and courage to break away from those sinful ways. I have also tried saying little prayers when I might have felt the urge to commit a sin. I ask for peace to flow over me so that I can turn away. It has helped. I know I just need to be persistent in my desire and need to change. John 3:16, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” We know that, through Jesus Christ, we have eternal life with God.
As it says in 1 John 1:9, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” We have a forgiving, loving heavenly Father. When we fall, he can pick us up. God gave Jesus as the final covenant for all mankind.
“Learning to pray doesn’t offer us a less busy life; it offers us a less busy heart.” – Paul E. Miller.
Praying helps us stay on track. It helps guide us in our ways. It helps us sustain our relationship with our God.
A Writer's Voice 