Heart Keepers 03
3. Earnest supplication and instant prayers for purifying and rectifying grace when sin has defiled and disordered the heart.
Two things here are worthy of notice. The first is "earnest supplication." When we go to God in prayer we need to go with a full acknowledgement of the curruption that yet abides in our hearts. Our prayers must reflect the fact that we are still battling self-love and the fear of man and that even our best prayers are susupect.
Especially when under trials or afflictions our prayers can be mercenary to say the least. We want relief for our pain and struggle so badly that we will often find ourselves bartering with God for His provision. We are so focused on the immediate need that we can often hinder our own prayers by not praying fully and wholly.
Fully and wholly? There is so much to pray for, so many needs of the Kingdom and its citizens - so many brothers and sisters in distress. There is the church to pray for, those whose needs we know to pray for and in our distress and concern for our situation it is easy - all too easy - to just pray for ourselves without regard to the broader picture.
We can also find ourselves praying, "If" prayers. You know, "God if You will just X I will Y." This is bartering with God, trying to strike a deal. This hinders the effectiveness of our prayers by it's assumption that God "barters" His blessings and provision. This sullies and minimizes our prayers making them shallow and , well, wrong.
Secondly we need to be sensitive to the needs for "instant prayers," or timely prayers. These are prayers in and of the moment especially when it comes to heart sins. I know I have gone to God with my needs and failing to recognize the heart sins yet needing to be dealt with I have prayed ill and been sticken because of my shallowness and self-love.
Sin defiles and disorders our hearts to a greater extent than we see, so our prayers must seek His cleansing and ordering of our hearts. I would suggest that this needs to be the first part of our prayers. Praying about praying may sound strange but if our hearts are not in the right frame we will pray amiss.
Praying for purifying and rectifying grace may well need to precede any if not all our prayers. If you have ever (and I assume you have) been under affliction and in pain you know how the corruptions of the heart can twist your thinking and affect your praying. Taking time to pray about praying is one good way to discover and root out this sins that would hinder and hamper your prayers.
When you find that your heart is not right, when it is struggling with heart sins, there are always the Psalms that you can pray. The writers of the Psalms experienced the difficuties of life much as we do. They felt abandonded by God as we do. They felt overwhelmed by affliction as we do. They felt all was hopeless as we do. And yet they always return to trusting the Lord even when the motivation is that there is no one else to turn to (which asctually there isn't). They struggled with the same ehart sins we struggle with and their guidance in our rpayers can be a great blessing and instruction.
Heat sins will always be a struggle for God's people here. However we can not allow their commonness to go unaddressed. Keeping the heart is nowhere more critical than in the areqa of prayer. Prayer is fundamental to our relationship with God and we need for that relationship to be open and whole from our side as it is from His. Heart sins, an unkept heart, will hinder and disorder our prayers which in turn will hinder and disorder our walk and witness.
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