Tuesday, June 03, 2008

Presumptuous Prayers?

The Practice of Godliness, by Jerry Bridges, is by far the most
deeply provoking and convicting book that I've read in a long time. In this short passage on fearing God, Bridges provides some solid food for thought about prayer.


"One of the more serious sins of Christians today may well be the almost flippant familiarity with which we often address God in prayer. None of the godly men of the Bible ever adopted this casual manner we often do. They always addressed God with reverence. The same writer who tells us that we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place, the throne room of God, also tells us that we should worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, "for our God is a consuming fire" (Hebrews 10:19 and 12:28-29).

There is a healthy tension in the godly person's heart between the reverential awe of God in his glory and the childlike confidence in God as heavenly Father. Without this tension, a Christian's filial confidence can easily degenerate into presumption.

In our day we must begin to recover a sense of awe and profound reverence for God. We must begin to view him once again in the infinite majesty that alone belongs to him who is the Creator and Supreme Ruler of the entire universe. There is an infinite gap in worth and dignity between God the Creator and man the creature, even though man has been created in the image of God. The fear of God is a heartfelt recognition of this gap-- not a put-down of man, but an exaltation of God."


(The Practice of Godliness, Jerry Bridges, page 27)

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