Happiness is something we long for. But how can we achieve it? It’s elusive: one moment we can be feeling happy, but the next we’re not. Like moonlight it has slipped through our fingers.

In fact ‘happiness’ can’t be a goal in the strict sense of the word. For a goal is something that is within our power to achieve. Happiness isn’t like that. There are too many variables outside our control.

We can think that being successful, having a good family and friends, material assets and comfort, will make us happy. But they don’t. There will always be others more successful. And behind the best of families there is often unresolved pain or hurt; those with wealth often find they’re not satisfied – they want more, or they worry about the security of all they have. Despite experiencing much that is good in life we don’t always feel that overwhelming sense of real happiness and joy.

Psalm 1 helps us. Blessed is the one … we read. Blessed means ‘happy’. The idea is echoed twenty-six times in the Psalms. It is also the word Jesus used in what are known as the Beatitudes in his Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:3-12).

In Psalm 1 verses 1 through 3 we read: Happy is the one who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but their delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law they meditate day and night.

We all have a real thirst, a longing for something that will satisfy us deeply. The thirst is not wrong. It is part of our complex make-up that makes us human. Our problem is that we look in the wrong places to satisfy it. The prophet Jeremiah records God’s words: “My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water,…” (Jeremiah 2:13).

Verse 1 of the Psalm challenges us to consider our world-view. Our natural inclination is to adopt a world-view that appeals to our sense of self-sufficiency. We like the music emanating from the temples of materialism or humanism that puts us in control of our lives and our destiny.

As we continue down this path, we indulge in behaviour that appeals to our feelings, even though it means flouting God’s directions and good purposes. And so we find ourselves marching in step with the crowds who live as though there is no God and no objective moral order. In turn we join the cynics who mock Christianity. We become part of a silent majority, failing to speak up for what we believe because we’re afraid. We sit in the seat of scoffers.

What then is the path to real happiness? Verse 2 tells us: their delight is in the law of the Lord; and on his law they meditate day and night.

The negatives of verse 1 are now contrasted in verse 2. As others have observed, they show us we have a choice. Like Adam and Eve in the original garden, God respects the gift of choice he has given us. It’s one of the features that makes us human. We are not puppets on a string in a mechanistic universe. We can choose.

Verse 2 provides the key that unlocks our true humanity: Their delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law they meditate day and night. We need something to transform us from deep within. The law of the Lord which stands against the counsel of the wicked is a reference to God’s instruction.

Interestingly the word meditate here is the same word plot Psalm 2:1. What goes on within our hearts and minds becomes evident in our words and actions. In Psalm 2:1 the plotting is the intention of darkness that leads to evil. In Psalm 1 meditating on God’s Word, his self-disclosure, leads to Godly growth and behaviour.

People who are blessed meditate on God’s Word – God’s special self-disclosure. Here is the key to real and lasting happiness. It foreshadows Jesus’ reference to living waters that he promised to the woman at the well in Samaria. These ‘waters’ are bound up in knowing him.

Sometimes we think that mediation is something carried out by the super-spiritual – people who are etched into stained-glass windows, people who have their heads in heaven but who are no earthly use. This is not so. The words here echo God’s command to Joshua – God’s man of action who needed just as much as anyone else to think hard about the will of God if he wanted to achieve anything worthwhile.

Real happiness is found in our determination to be instructed and counselled by God himself. This isn’t easy. It means being prepared to look inside ourselves and consider why we say the things we sometimes do, why we think and behave the way we do, and then be willing to change. This can be tough. It means being honest with ourselves before God. It can take time.

For to meditate on God’s teaching involves letting the weight of God’s Word press upon our hearts and minds, and our life-style.

Where then do we find true happiness? Not swimming in the shallows of faith, but plunging into the mind of God found in the living waters of his Word.

Prayer. Almighty God, you show to those who are in error the light of your truth so that they may return into the way of righteousness: grant to all who are admitted into the fellowship of Christ’s service so that we may renounce those things that are contrary to our profession and follow all such things as are agreeable to it; through our Lord Jesus Christ.  Amen.

Almighty and eternal God, grant that we may grow in faith, hope, and love; especially make us love what you command so that we may obtain what you have promised; through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

You may like to listen to He Will Hold Me Fast from Keith and Kristyn Getty.

© John G. Mason

How can we weather the challenges of our messy and conflicted world?

Come with me to Ephesians chapter 3, verses 14 through 21 where we find one of the great prayers of the Bible. The curtain over Paul the Apostle is drawn aside and we are given a glimpse of him at prayer.

I kneel before the Father, he begins, from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name. Genesis chapter 1 tells us that God created us in his image and it is therefore true to say that all humanity has its fatherhood or parentage in God. However, as the Bible unfolds, we see that there is a very special relationship between God and those who are personally drawn to him. Paul is echoing what Jesus taught his disciples: we can call God, ‘our Father’.

This really is an extraordinary privilege – to be able to call God ‘Father’. In fact, when we think about it, there is no higher honor that God could give us, for it means we stand in a very special relationship with him as his adopted sons and daughters. This awesome truth stands at the heart of Paul’s prayer. And he prays that we might experience this awareness in our lives, so we can relax and enjoy the amazing privilege of being God’s special people at every twist and turn in life. Three themes stand out.

Inner strength. I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit…

The work of the Spirit goes to the heart of our being. Despite what cosmetologists and exercise gurus want us to think, the truth is that our physical bodies are wasting away. The time will come, when as far as our physical body is concerned, there is little hope for the future. But Paul wants us to understand that it’s not all downhill.

If God is at work in our lives, changes for the better to our inner being can occur. It’s here we see the counter-cultural way God works as opposed to the way that the world expects him to work. The world expects God to work with great displays of power. Tempted to think this way too, we might say that God’s power is to be expressed in self-confidence, self-assertion, success. And when it comes to churches, it is thought that God’s power will be seen in high-powered church growth and in dramatic answers to prayer.

But God has a different plan. For the present he chooses to work in secret, changing us from the inside out, not the outside in. It’s an important distinction most of us miss. Paul is praying that the Holy Spirit will strengthen us at the very root of our character and our lives. He prays that God’s Spirit will so work in our lives and so teach us that we will be strengthened in our appetite for God and our love and loyalty to Jesus. He wants us to focus our hope on Christ, to drop sinful habits and develop a new framework for living.

Paul says that he wants to see the whole of our inner life affected by the Spirit — our hearts and affections, our will, our minds and decisions. It’s radical and it’s painful. Once the Holy Spirit starts to work in our lives, begins to probe, to question, to challenge, to discipline and to develop us, it hurts. For when he takes the Word of God and reaches to the very depth of our being, the Word becomes like a scalpel in his hands.

Transformation. That Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love (3:17).

This is the only place in the whole of the Bible that speaks about Christ dwelling in our hearts. Dwell means ‘settle down’, or ‘putting down roots’. Mixing his metaphors Paul prays that we will be well-rooted trees withstanding droughts, and well-built houses that can withstand hurricanes.

There will be many things in us with which Jesus Christ will not be comfortable. Repairs and renovation are needed in our lives. And anyone who has done house renovation and repairs knows it takes longer and costs more than we anticipate.

Knowing that this kind of life-changing transformation is what God wants and knowing that it requires God’s power in our lives, Paul prays that God will do what is necessary to make our lives a fit home for his Son.

Christ’s Love. I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length, and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that passes knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God (3:18-19).

With imagery that awakens us to the complexity and profundity of God’s love – the breadth and length, and height and depth – Paul prays that we will know the love of Christ. He wants us not only to know but also to experience God’s love so that we may be able to say, and really know and feel it in our hearts, ‘the Son of God gave himself for me.’

This genuine experience of Christ rarely comes to anyone who is not spending time in the Scriptures – for example, meditating on Ephesians chapter 1 through chapter 2, verse 10. The kind of mind-shift we need to prompt us to do this usually requires large explosive power. Sometimes God gives us a wake-up call through hardship, bereavement or tragedy. Sometimes it’s not until we see material possessions for what they are, baubles and trinkets, that we begin to comprehend the reality of God’s love.

Indeed, it’s only when God’s power is at work in our lives that we will begin to see what it meant for God to get into our skin and enter our world, what it cost for him to suffer and die in our place. I pray, says Paul, that with all of God’s people you experience the power of God’s love in your hearts, and knowing that, experience the fullness of joy with the transcendent Lord.

Beyond Imagination. Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen (3:20-21).

Paul’s words here startle and encourage us. Our thoughts and imaginations are lifted beyond time and space to the Lord himself. Significantly, the focus of God’s powerful work is amongst and through his people.

Too often we forget God’s awesome cosmic purposes; we focus too much on ourselves. Maybe we are content to swim in the shallows of faith rather than in the deep, clear waters of God’s love. For in his love God has far greater expectations for us than we can even begin to imagine.

A prayer. Almighty God, who taught the hearts of your faithful people by sending them the light of your Holy Spirit: so enable us by the same Spirit to have a right judgment in all things and always to rejoice in his holy comfort; through the merits of Christ Jesus our Savior, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.  Amen.

You may like to listen to The Lord is My Salvation from Keith and Kristyn Getty.

© John G. Mason

A question we rarely think about is this: ‘What does Jesus expect of everyone who believes?’

A third part of the prayer Jesus prayed on the night of his arrest provides a vital part of the answer. In John chapter 17, verse 21 we read: “I ask … that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me”.

The all in this verse suggests that he is including everyone who comes to believe in him, as well as his disciples.

In the flow of his prayer, it is important to notice that he is not praying for ‘unity’ as we often think of it – a structural unity – but rather a ‘confessional’ unity. He is praying for a unity of understanding amongst all his people: the acknowledgement that he is the unique Son of God, sent by the Father to rescue humanity.

In other words, Jesus is praying that the essential truth of his relationship with God the Father will be at the heart of Christian belief. As such, he prayed for a unity amongst his people that reflects the unity of relationship between God the Father and God the Son. The unity that Jesus is speaking of here is that all his people would receive and respond to his teaching the same way.

Which implies another key to the unity for which Jesus prays – the acceptance of the unique authority of his person and work and his teaching.

Furthermore, there is to be a unity of profound love and fellowship between his people because of their fellowship with God the Father and God the Son. His prayer reflects his teaching that true worshippers will ‘worship God the Father in spirit and in truth’ (John 4:23).

And it is also important to notice that Jesus is praying for a ‘missional’ outcome to this unity: “That the world may believe that you have sent me”.

Division amongst men and women is the way of the world. True unity amongst the people of God, for which Jesus prays, facilitates gospel outreach – ‘so that the world may believe’.

Men and women in the wider world are in revolt against God and the Son he has sent. Yet God has loved, and continues to love, the world and is committed to drawing more and more people to the One he has sent. The unity in faith of God’s people will be a sign that will draw many to faith.

Now, we need to note that Jesus is not praying here for the amalgamation of denominations. Joining like-minded Christians together might be desirable, especially where buildings and services are often duplicated with a loss of efficiency.

But Jesus is not praying for this kind of structural unity. Rather he is praying for the essential union of hearts and minds that respond to the truth of Jesus. Ultimately he is praying that all his people – whether the first disciples, or you and me today – will be with him where he is: “Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am,…” (John 17:24).

So, the essence of this part of Jesus’ great prayer is that all his people throughout the ages will be with him where he is in the Kingdom of God. His intention for his people is that we all see the glory that the Father has given him, as God’s unique Son, because of God’s love for him. So Jesus continued:  “That they may see my glory which you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world” (John 17:24b).

This prayer of Jesus that we have touched on over these three Wednesdays tells us so much about him – his glory, his suffering and his passion. We see his commitment to glorify God. It also tells us about the significant work of the disciples; if they had messed up, we would have no knowledge of God’s extraordinary love and the forgiveness he holds out to us. Thirdly, Jesus’ prayer tells us about us, and our need to work at the unity that springs from a united confession of faith.

Jesus’ prayer is not a ‘God bless…’ prayer. It is a prayer that instructs our minds and touches our hearts with the riches of God’s love.

Prayer. Lord may we come to love you more and more, with all our mind, with all our heart and from our very soul, so that you may be glorified in the lives of all who are united in a common confession of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen.

Lord, give your people grace to withstand the temptations of the world, the flesh, and the devil, and with pure hearts and minds to follow you, the only true God; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

You may like to listen to May the People’s Praise You from Keith and Kristyn Getty.

© John G. Mason

How can we be sure about God? Christianity makes claims that can be hard to believe in the 21st century – for example, its exclusiveness, its supernaturalism and its age.

 To say that Jesus is the only way to God appears to be very narrow-minded. Further, the story of Jesus is woven around miraculous events – a virgin birth and a resurrection. And it all happened more than two thousand years ago.

In John chapter 17 we find the record of a prayer Jesus prayed on the night he was betrayed and arrested. The greater part of the prayer was for his disciples, revealing the unique role they were to play in building on the foundation that Jesus himself was laying.

In Jesus’ words to God the Father we discern the importance of the disciples in God’s big plan: “I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word.

The disciples were to be the link between Jesus and the world. Much will depend on their understanding of Jesus as the Christ – the Messiah – and their courage and loyalty to him.

In verses 2 and 3 Jesus had prayed: “Since you have given him (that is, he, Jesus) authority over all people, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life, so that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.

The ministry of his disciples would be essential if men and women were to benefit from God’s gift of eternal life. If the disciples failed in their task, if they gave in to hostile pressures and denied the truth they had been given to speak about, Christianity would have been still-born.

So Jesus prays that the Father would give each of the disciples eternal life. He also prays that the Father would protect them (17:11), keep them from the powers of evil (17:15), and make them holy in the truth (17:17). He also prayed that the love that God the Father has for the Son, would be true for them as well (17:16).

Jesus knew the road the disciples would tread would not be easy. Yet he didn’t pray that they would be taken out of the world. Rather, he prayed that they would be kept faithful and guarded from the powers of the evil one.

Furthermore, Jesus went on to pray for everyone who would come to faith: “I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, …” (John 17:20).

At the heart of the disciples’ ministry would be the ministry of ‘God’s Word’ – preaching and teaching. The content of their word would be Jesus the Messiah.

From the time of Pentecost the disciples, now apostles (sent ones), began preaching, urging their hearers to turn to Jesus as the Messiah in repentance and faith. Over the following fifty years, thousands turned to Christ through their word ministry.

Furthermore, it was during those years that the apostles and others who had been uniquely trained, equipped and commissioned by Jesus, wrote the Gospels and Letters for the churches.

In 2 Peter 1:16-18, we read: For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For when he received honor and glory from God the Father, and the voice was borne to him by the Majestic Glory, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased,” we ourselves heard this very voice borne from heaven, for we were with him on the holy mountain.

Peter is saying that he and the other apostles did not pass on a cunningly invented myth. Jesus really is God in the flesh; he really did rise from the dead. ‘I have the evidence of my own eyes,’ Peter says. ‘Our testimony is true.’

Furthermore, in 2 Peter 3:15 we read: …Count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother, Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures.

Paul’s Letters also were acknowledged as God’s Word.

What we often overlook is that these men, and others with them, overturned the Roman world not by armed revolution, but by the example of their lives, their testimony and teaching. Can you imagine that those disciples of Jesus constructed a monstrous lie?

Prayer. Heavenly Father, keep your household the Church continually in your true religion; so that those who lean only on the hope of your heavenly grace may always be defended by your mighty power; through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

You may like to listen to Lift High the Name of Jesus from Keith and Kristyn Getty.

© John G. Mason

Our prayers say a great deal about us. Are your prayers like that of AA Milne’s, Christopher Robin who, in the midst of his child-like bedtime prayers, prayed that God would bless his parents as well as himself? Or do your prayers reflect the shape of the honest and humble yet bold petitionary prayers of people such as Moses, David and Daniel or the prayer that Jesus taught his disciples?

In John chapter 17 we read Jesus’ prayer on the eve of his arrest. It’s a prayer that tells us a great deal about him and his relationship with God the Father, his concern for his disciples, as well his concern for all his people throughout time. Over three Wednesdays I’ll be touching on these three themes.

Today let me focus on verses 1 and 5. In verse 1 we read: After Jesus had spoken these words, he looked up to heaven and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you, … “

Jesus knew that within hours he would be arrested, convicted by human authorities, and put to death. Given the confessional prayers of Moses, David and Daniel, as well as the prayer Jesus taught his disciples, it is significant that he makes no confession of sin. Of all humanity, he alone is without sin.

His prayer is sometimes called ‘the great high priestly prayer’, but strictly speaking it isn’t. The central task of a high priest’s work was to offer sacrifices and to pray for God to forgive his own sin as well as the sins of God’s people. But the focus of Jesus’ prayer is that God will glorify him: “Glorify your Son, so that the Son may glorify you…” (17:1).

The verb to glorify typically means ‘to honor’ – as we find in John chapter 5, verse 23. There Jesus speaks of God’s plan that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father.

But in the opening line of his prayer in John chapter 17, Jesus reveals the depths of God’s previously hidden pre-cosmic plan.

The opening lines of John’s Gospel read: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And in verse 14 we learn that the Word took on human form and came amongst us as one of us. John testifies: We beheld his glory, the glory of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth (1:14).

Now, in chapter 17, Jesus prays that God will glorify him, so that he will remain faithful to the bitter end in the implementation of his Father’s long hidden plan, so that he in turn may glorify the Father (17:1). God’s plan is extraordinary, in contrast to that of any human wisdom. God’s glory would be revealed through the events of Jesus’ death, resurrection and exaltation.

And some sixteen centuries later Archbishop Thomas Cranmer came to understand – as Dr. Ashley Null has observed – that ‘the glory of God is his love of the unworthy’.

On the night of his arrest, Jesus prayed that God the Father would honor him, so that he would honor the Father through his sacrificial death for the sins of the world.

We feel the impact of what Jesus is saying and what was about to happen. Judas had gone into the night to do his dark work of betrayal. Jesus was certain of his pending arrest, trial and death. “Glorify the Son,” he prays, “so that the Son may glorify you”.

In verse 5, Jesus continues: “So now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had in your presence before the world existed”. Jesus is self-consciously divine, but he is also human and therefore vulnerable. He was praying that God would restore the glory he, Jesus, had set aside when he took on human form.

One great work remained – his work of bearing the sin of the whole world, when he would be lifted up on the cross as he had predicted earlier in his ministry (John 3:14-15). Furthermore, his final words, “It is finished”, recorded in John chapter 19, verses 28 and 30, express his sense that his work on earth was complete.

As he began his prayer, Jesus knew that with his arrest, trial and crucifixion, he would have to endure an injustice such as the world had never seen, and that the physical torture he would have to bear would be horrific. Significantly, the Gospel record is silent on the physical pain. Rather the focus is on the spiritual pain he would endure in taking on himself our sin and guilt before the holy God. In that hour he would feel totally alone. His eternal, perfect and loving relationship with God the Father would be at breaking point.

Jesus knew that the only way he could remain faithful, passing through the deepest shadows of the valley of death and so glorifying God, would be in God’s strength. He would be treading the path of suffering in the midst of the extremes of human hostility and supernatural opposition.

Yet throughout this first part of his prayer he reveals that his central concern is the glory of God.

This surely gives us pause. As beneficiaries of the events that reveal the true glory of God, surely we too will want to thank the Lord from the bottom of our heart and, in turn, want to glorify God in our every thought, word and act.

Jesus did not just pray for himself and the dark hours he faced. He prayed that God would be glorified through his death, resurrection and exaltation. He further prayed that God would restore him to the glory he had put aside when he came amongst us in person.

Prayer. Lord God, the unfailing helper and guide of those whom you bring up in your steadfast fear and love, keep us, we pray, under the protection of your good providence, and give us a continual reverence and love for your holy name; through Jesus Christ our Lord.   Amen.

You may want to listen to In Christ Alone from Keith and Kristyn Getty.

© John G. Mason

I have a question: how often are your prayers prompted by your meditation on God’s Word?

In Daniel chapter 9 we read: In the first year of Darius the son of Ahasuerus, by birth a Mede, who became king over the realm of the Chaldeans – in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, perceived in the books the number of years that, according to the word of the Lord to the prophet Jeremiah, must be fulfilled for the devastation of Jerusalem, namely, seventy years. Then I turned to the Lord God, to seek an answer by prayer and supplication …

Around 539BC, Daniel was amongst the elite of Jewish society who had been in exile in Babylon for over 50 years. During that time his abilities and his faith had shone when, at significant moments, his advice had been sought by Kings Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar and Darius.

Now in his 80s Daniel had lost neither his intellectual sharpness nor his faith. And because he was a man who consistently read and meditated on God’s Word, he was very aware of God’s promise that Jerusalem and its people would be restored.

He knew of Jeremiah’s prophesy: Therefore thus says the Lord of hosts: Because you have not obeyed my words … this whole land shall become a ruin and a waste, and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years (Jeremiah 25:8,11).

And he also knew that Jeremiah had spoken of the restoration of God’s people: ‘Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you,’ declares the Lord, ‘and will bring you back from captivity’ Jeremiah (29:12).

Daniel was certain God would not forget his promise. But he didn’t just sit around, enjoying life, waiting for God to step in. With the Scriptures open before him, he turned his face to the Lord and prayed. God’s sovereignty is not fatalistic determinism. Rather, he invites us to partner with him in the implementation of his plans. The 17th century French mathematician, physicist and philosopher, Blaise Pascal observed, ‘God instituted prayer in order to lend to His creatures the dignity of causality’.

Daniel knew the Lord and understood that the secret to addressing concerns and fears in life is found in heart-felt confession and petition.

Confession. Consider key elements of Daniel’s prayer. ‘O God, we have turned away from your commands and your laws’ (9:5); ‘we have not listened to your servants the prophets; we have not obeyed the laws you gave’ (9:10); ‘we have broken your law’ (9:11); ‘we have not looked for your mercy by turning away from our sins and paying attention to your truth’ (9:13). Significantly, Daniel reflects on God’s law, given to Moses, and identifies himself with the sin of God’s people. All Israel had sinned, including Daniel.

Throughout his prayer Daniel acknowledges the personal relationship that exists between God and his people. A covenant exists between them – a covenant with commands and laws which God himself has revealed.

It’s easy to think of God’s judgement simply falling on the godless and the perpetrators of evil. But Daniel’s prayer identifies sin as breaking God’s commands. How often we forget this today – in part because when we gather as God’s people we are not specifically reminded of God’s commands. Our understanding of sin in God’s sight becomes vague and subjective.

How important it is that we consistently open up and meditate on God’s Word. God delights in us growing in our relationship with him as the almighty Lord whose glory transcends the universe and speaks of his awesome power and purity. God wants us to understand his plan and purpose for us whom he has created in his image. Yet too often we succumb to the attractions of the world and our lives are compromised by the spirit of the age. And so we daily need to confess our own sin before the Lord, and when we gather as a church.

To follow Daniel’s example, it’s essential that we confess our broken relationship with the Lord before we petition him with our requests. Indeed, it is a pattern that Archbishop Thomas Cranmer put into the liturgies he developed in the Book of Common Prayer.

Petition. Daniel’s confession turns to petition with: Lord, in view of all your righteous acts, let your anger and wrath, we pray, turn away…

Daniel didn’t ask God to set aside his righteousness and overlook the sins of his people. Instead, he asked God to act because of his righteousness. Paradoxically this was Israel’s only hope.

Like Moses, Daniel appealed to God on the basis of God’s character: Now therefore,… Incline your ear, O my God, and hear… We do not present our supplication before you on the ground of our righteousness, but on the ground of your great mercies.

At the heart of Daniel’s petition is the glory of God’s name. He did not hesitate to remind God of what he’d already revealed in his Word and urged him to roll up his sleeves and act.

Daniel was not presumptuous. Rather, he was humble, honest and contrite about his own sin and the sin of God’s people. But this didn’t prevent him praying on the basis of God’s character and God’s promises.

At the center of Daniel’s prayer is confidence that God is a God of mercy. The glorious and gracious thing about God is that he is always willing to receive people back when they repent and are committed to start afresh with him.

The New Testament knows of this type of faith and prayer. We see it in the faith of four men that brought forgiveness of sin and healing when they lowered their paralyzed friend through a roof.

With the coming of Jesus Christ and his commitment to build his church, how much more should we speak frankly and humbly to God, asking him to honor and glorify his name by acting with mercy towards our sinful world?

Do you regularly ask for God’s forgiveness, not just for your own sin, but the sin of others? Do you pray that for the sake of God’s name and reputation, he will act with mercy, softening hard hearts and awakening many to the truth of his good news? God has promised!

Prayer. Almighty God, creator of all things and giver of every good and perfect gift, hear with favor the prayers of your people, so that we who are justly punished for our offences may mercifully be delivered by your goodness, for the glory of your name; through Jesus Christ our Savior, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.  Amen.

Lord Christ, eternal Word and Light of the Father’s glory, have mercy on our broken and divided world; send your light and your truth so that as we proclaim your word of life many will turn to you; for you now live and reign, God for all eternity. Amen.

You might like to listen to The Perfect Wisdom of Our God from Keith and Kristyn Getty.

© John G. Mason