I woke early with to the sub-conscious sound of my alarm going off. This has happened before where I was aware that I could hear my alarm ringing in my dream-world and awoke to realize it was real. This time I awoke to quiet. No alarm ringing. I took it that God had set an inner alarm for me to get up and pray.
I am always curious if God wakes us up because there is some individual who is in spiritual trouble and needs our intercession, or whether there is some event about to happen the wrong way and he wants his children to be part of his work to intervene with the fellowship of our prayers. Whatever the case, even if we never know the answers to such thoughts, God has us up to be who we are in Christ, and to add our prayers to the glorious fragrance of the incense that rises to his throne.[1]
The Prayer-Theme
As I settled into some intercessory prayer-journaling, I began expressing myself to our Father in heaven according to my theme verse from Micah:
He has told you, O man, what is good;
and what does Yahweh require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?[2]
The Prayer for What is Good
My first focus on prayer was for God himself to do whatever good he deemed best for anything at all, and to lead me into his good towards others. Since “good” means morally excellent, my request was for God to teach this to all his children, particular ones who aren’t getting along, and guide us into the goodness of our God. There was a sense in which I both knew what to expect in his reply while knowing that I couldn’t guess where I would see him answering my prayer.
The Prayer For What is Required
My next focus was to ask God to let the feeling of “requirement” fall on us all. If he has already told us what he requires of us, we need the sense that there is an obligation for us to go looking for what it is. In this case, there is the sense that grace does require obedient faith and does everything needed to take our hand and enable us to do so.[3] Since so many church-folk struggle with the performance-mindset, my intercession included the focus on this being something we understand as the gracious gift of relationship rather than the law-based burden of rules and regulations.
The Prayer to Do Justice
Thirdly, I began praying God’s “do justice” into my personal situations. I asked him to do the justice he requires for this day, but to also lead me into doing justice myself. I know that we will not see ultimate justice towards the world until the Great White Throne judgment.[4] However, there is still a sense in which we cry out to God for justice all the time anyway.[5]
The definition of justice is: “judgment involved in the determination of rights and the assignment of rewards and punishments.”[6] My praying is that God would determine the precise reality of rights in all the situations he wants me to pray for, and all the circumstances I will face today, and that he would assign the rewards and punishments that are required for justice to be done.
The Personal Application of Prayer
I asked the same for myself, that I would have the freedom to relate to
everyone justly, not showing favoritism to anyone based on any kind of
preferred relationship, but to have such a love of justice, rightness,
realness, and truth, that I am free to attach to those who love and serve the
Lord Jesus Christ no matter who they are, and treat all who are against Jesus with
the same prayers that his kindness would lead them to repentance[7]
so they can turn or return to God with all their hearts, souls, minds, and
strengths.[8]
God’s Preferences in Prayer
I then looked at a variety of Scriptures that affirm the realities expressed in the context of Micah 6:8, particularly that God repeatedly tells his people that he isn’t interested in their burnt offerings, sacrifices, worship, and songs while they are serving idols. The real worship is in repentance and faith, summarized by these expressions: “obeying the voice of Yahweh,” and “to listen”;[9] “steadfast love,” and “the knowledge of God”;[10]“by the help of your God, return, hold fast to love and justice, and wait continually for your God,”[11] and, ”let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.”[12]
The point is that God is looking for our hearts, that we would experience him working in all of us without favoritism or partiality. He will address idolatry in all of us as he answers our prayers. He will lead us to trust and obey, to walk in agapè-love, to prefer the personal knowledge of God to any idols, and to love expressing justice and righteousness in all that we do.
Submission to God’s Answers
There are situations I am facing where I am grieved by what I see happening among God’s people. Some of the circumstances have a very clear expression of God’s will in his word and yet no opportunity to carry it out as described. God has given his solutions that fulfill doing justice, loving kindness, and walking humbly with our God, but they are not desired. The idol of self-protection has far more authority than the clearly revealed will of God[13] and I must pray accordingly. But God’s thoughts are still higher than my thoughts and his ways higher than my ways,[14] so I can’t tell him how exactly to respond. I only know that I must pray according to his will and then wait patiently for him to answer however is best.
The Prayer of Faith
Because it is clearly God’s will for us to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with our God, we can pray in faith that we ourselves would live this to the full, and that the body of Christ with us would unite in such fellowship. We will then see how our hearts respond to each person without favoritism and partiality, seeking God’s best for each one while humbly watching for his surprising way of working.
A Day’s Encouragement
My praying this morning was encouraged along by a divine appointment I had yesterday where someone trying to sell me on donating to a cause heard the good news of the free gift of salvation for the first time in his life. I felt such joy in introducing him to the reality of 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,” and explaining the wonders of what this meant. It feels like an open door to continue, and so I must wait patiently for another opportunity. However, there is no doubt that the sharing of the good news of great joy fills us with joy because of the richness of God’s gift of grace.
Conclusion
The bottom line is that, the way God satisfied his own justice on the
cross so he could express kindness towards us for our repentance and faith
calls us to ask God to do justice, to express his love of kindness, and lead us
to humbly walk with him while we submit to his will that we ourselves would do
everything in justice, love expressing kindness, and walk humbly with our God
however he leads. The longings we pray in intercession for ourselves and others
will be answered in Jesus’ name.
© 2022 Monte Vigh ~
Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8
Email:
in2freedom@gmail.com
Unless
otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy
Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by
Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)
[1]
Revelation 5:8; 8:3-4
[2]
Micah 6:8
[3]
Romans 1:5; 16:26
[4]
Matthew 25:31-46
[5]
Luke 18:7
[6]
Bible Sense Lexicon of Logos Bible Software
[7]
Romans 2:4
[8]
Deuteronomy 30:2
[9]
I Samuel 15:22
[10]
Hosea 6:6
[11]
Hosea
12:6
[12]
Amos
5:24
[13]
Larry Crabb warned me about this in his book, “Inside Out”, back around
1990.
[14]
Isaiah 55:9
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