The Pharisee's Prayer

Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’

Luke 18:10-12‌

The Pharisee’s prayer is 33 words long in English, and it contains 4 favorable comparisons for himself. It’s long and arrogant and all about himself. When you look closely at his prayer, you realize that all the Pharisee did was thank God for making him so superior to other men. 

His prayer is full of pride for himself and contempt for those he believes are beneath him. The Pharisee doesn’t ask God for anything. He makes no requests. And the reason why is obvious enough. In his own estimation, he doesn’t lack anything. So, he prays about his own greatness. He uses prayer as an opportunity to sing his own praises to God.

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Jesus is teaching us in this passage that not all prayers are pleasing to God. In fact, some prayers can be downright sinful. God hates pride! He hates arrogance! Don’t use your prayers to exalt yourself. Prayer should be a time to sing God’s praises, not your own. 

And don’t use prayer as an excuse to look down on other people. Don’t allow your prayers for other people to turn into an opportunity to slander them or pour contempt on them before the Lord. Make sure your prayers for other people are seasoned with grace. "For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted” (Luke 18:14).

How Jesus Started His Prayer

This, then, is how you should pray:

Our Father in heaven...

Matthew 6:9

These four little words, "Our Father in heaven," start the Lord's prayer off with an important balance. They are like training wheels, teaching us to balance two important principles in prayer. 

First, Jesus teaches us to address God as ‘Father.’ That word, ‘Father,’ grabs hold of the All-powerful, Eternal, Creator of the universe and brings Him close. ‘Father’ is a relational word. It reminds us as we pray that God isn’t a god who is far away, He is a god who is close by... a god who loves us.

‌‌But then come the words “in Heaven,” which balance God’s closeness as a Father with the truth that He is high above us. Yes, God is our Father who loves us, but He is also the one who sits on the throne of Heaven. He is both near to us and highly exalted and beyond us in every way.

‌‌These two truths must be balanced and held in tension in your prayers. Your prayers should be personal and intimate like a conversation with your Father, but they should also be respectful and worshipful because you are talking to the King of Heaven. Your prayers shouldn’t err too much on either side but should strike a balance between humble adoration and childlike closeness.‌ When you pray, pray with an awareness of both these truths.

How Nehemiah Started His Prayer

Then I said: “Lord, the God of heaven, the great and awesome God, who keeps his covenant of love with those who love him and keep his commandments,

Nehemiah 1:5

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Most of us begin every prayer we pray the same way, “Dear God”; but I have no idea where we get that from. It’s not from the Bible. Nowhere in the Bible will you find someone start a prayer with the words “Dear God.” 

Frankly, I don’t think it's a very helpful way to begin a prayer. It's so formal and distant. It sounds like we are writing a letter to God, not having a conversation with Him. And most of the time when we say those two words, we don't mean anything by them. We aren’t really saying anything about how dear God is to us. It's just a meaningless way to get our prayer off and running. 

Notice that Nehemiah doesn’t start his prayer that way though. He shows us a better way. He starts his prayer with: 

“Lord, the God of heaven, the great and awesome God, who keeps his covenant of love with those who love him and keep his commandments.”

That's so much better than "Dear God!" I want to encourage you to think about how you start your prayers. It's not necessarily bad to start your prayers with “Dear God,” but it may be a rut that is holding your prayer life back. 

So, when you pray, think about who you are praying to and address Him as such. Try starting your prayers off with “Heavenly Father" or "Lord God in Heaven” or “Lord God Almighty” or “My God, My Rock, My Savior” or “O Great Friend of Sinners.” Try anything to break yourself out of the rut of “Dear God.” 

I freely admit that it has proven more difficult than I thought it would be to break the habit. But ‌I have found that my prayers are much more meaningful when I start them off by really thinking about who God is. Why not give it a try?

Why Christians Can't Reject the Old Testament

Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, was one of the two who heard what John had said and who had followed Jesus. The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, “We have found the Messiah” (that is, the Christ).

John 1:40-41

Have you ever heard someone say that the God of the Old Testament isn’t the same God we find in the New Testament? Or maybe you've come across someone who rejects the Old Testament but is happy to accept the New Testament and the teachings of Jesus? A single word in the passage above, along with many other New Testament passages, reveals the error in that thinking. 

Sometimes we get confused and start to think of "Christ" as Jesus’ last name. But it wasn’t part of His name at all. His name was Jesus of Nazareth or Jesus the son of Joseph the carpenter. ‌‌"Christ" is simply the Greek word for "Messiah." And what both words mean is “anointed one.”

‌The great Jewish hope was for a Messiah or a Christ- an anointed king to come. And the Old Testament promises over and over again that He would come from the line of King David and would restore and repair David’s fallen tent. This Messiah would be a king. He would sit on David’s throne, and his kingdom would even surpass David's kingdom in glory. The Messiah would destroy the enemies of God's people and He would bring about a new order of justice and peace and prosperity for them.*

‌‌So, when we as Christians say that we believe in Jesus Christ, we are connecting our faith to the Old Testament and to the promises that God made to the Jewish people there. We are claiming a continuity with the Old Testament. We are claiming that Jesus is the fulfillment of the Old Testament promises, that He is the promised Messiah.

T‌his rules out the idea that we can somehow reject the God of the Old Testament while we embrace the God of the New Testament. Jesus' very identity binds the two testaments together. Remove either testament and the life and ministry of Jesus Christ makes no sense. It was the God of the Old Testament that sent Jesus, and it was the God of the Old Testament that Jesus submitted to and obeyed all His earthly life. Christians can’t reject the Old Testament or the God that we find there, precisely because Jesus flows out of its pages. So, we as Christians must be a people of the book, all of the book. You cannot write-off the Old Testament and follow Jesus Christ.

‌*Gonzalez, Justo L. The Apostle’s Creed for Today. (Westminster John Knox Press, Louisville, KY) 2007, p30.