The Principles of Prayer XXI

 As children of God, our allegiance is exclusive. Our allegiance is not to ideology, denomination, a political party, or an individual, but to God. We serve Him, we obey Him, and we worship Him because He is worthy of all these things and more. Because our allegiance is to God, our singular focus is to be pleasing in His sight, not in the sight of men, or a certain demographic that seethes with hatred for the God of the Bible, but is willing to make use of those who ally with their cause until they are no longer useful.

Any man who places anything or anyone above God is no longer serving Him but serving their cause d'jour, or the creation rather than the Creator. If your feelings, emotions, or opinions are in opposition to the Word and will of God, it is not God who must change in order to accommodate you; it is you who must submit to His authority and do as He commands.

It takes a special kind of hubris to insist that the everlasting God, the one who spoke the universe into existence, He who is omnipotent, should do a sudden heel turn because His standard, if He were to maintain it, would hurt your feelings, or keep you from doing the things the flesh yearns to do. Yes, men take it upon themselves to widen the narrow path, including men who others see as spiritual authorities, but it does not mean God suddenly changed His mind or that He’s gone back on what He deems sin.

It would be nice to have a deeper relationship with God, it would be nice to walk in authority, but I have neither the time nor the inclination to devote myself to prayer, so God has to make an exception for me. No, He doesn’t. That’s not the way it works, and anyone who thinks themselves more special than anyone else and deserving of a special carve-out is only deluding themselves.

Pride has a way of warping men’s minds to the point that they see themselves as indispensable, and because they believe that God’s entire plan for mankind rests on their shoulders, and would surely fall apart without them, they allow themselves liberties that Scripture never signs off on.

We may be short on equal application of the law when it comes to men nowadays, but when it comes to God, the same rules apply to everyone, and there are no exceptions. The soul that sins will die. That’s what the Book says! It’s not the soul that sins, will die, with the exception of Bill or Janet, who can do as they will and still get a pass.

I understand the following may sting a bit, especially if you’re from the generation that was told incessantly that they were special by everyone from their auntie to granny, to mom, dad, and the mailman, but you’re not. You’re no more special than anyone else, regardless of your pedigree, social standing, net worth, or digital footprint. We may all have different gifts, different intelligence levels, different aptitudes and abilities, but in the eyes of God, those things don’t make us more special or deserving of special treatment.

We all start out as wretches, whether rich wretches, poor wretches, smart wretches, or wretches of average intelligence. We all start out needing a savior, needing redemption, and needing rebirth. It’s the same starting line for everyone, but the finish line differs from person to person because while some receive the gift of salvation, others dismiss and reject it as though eternity didn’t hang in the balance.

No man who understands grace, salvation, and the price Jesus paid on the cross is arrogant or boastful of the gifts God has bestowed upon him. Every time I hear a braggart, regardless of the context, alarm bells start going off, and that’s doubly so if it has anything to do with the spiritual.

A vessel is a vessel. What makes a vessel valuable is what is placed inside it, and the vessel itself has no agency over its contents. God decides what He pours into a vessel after it has been made clean. If God has given you a gift, what right do you or I have to boast of the gift as though it were acquired by our own prowess, and is now proprietary to us?

Faith is the essence of prayer. It is the environment in which prayer transcends someone talking to a wall, and opens the lines of communication between man and God. We are not like the Greeks of old, praying to every god under the sun, and even to an unknown god, just to cover all the bases. We know who we pray to and have faith that He hears. We have faith that when we cry out, He is there to comfort; when we are broken, He is there to restore; and when we forfeit this life for the life to come, He will bestow it upon us and abundantly so.

The central pivot of the altar of prayer, upon which a strong and vibrant prayer life hinges, is faith, for without faith it is impossible to please God. Faith itself can be declarative, experiential, or both. Someone who says they believe in God, but never quantifies which god they are referring to, has made a declarative statement about an abstract notion with which they had no intimate encounter or interaction. Excluding the outright atheists, most people today fall into this category. They believe there is something more, but they cannot define what that is. Whether God, a higher power, or a force, they believe in the existence of a deity of some sort; they made a declarative statement to this effect, but they’ve never known the one true God or felt His presence.

Those who possess experiential faith, however, likewise have declarative faith, wherein, having experienced the presence of God, having known the goodness of the Lord, they declare boldly that He is, that He lives, that He transforms and saves. 

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.

Posted on 9 May 2025 | 11:19 am