SCRIPTURE: Psalm 79
OBSERVATION/APPLICATION:
Do not hold against us the sins of past generations; may your mercy come quickly to meet us, for we are in desperate need. Help us, God our Savior, for the glory of your name; deliver us and forgive our sins for your name’s sake. [Psalm 79:8-9]
This prayer reveals an awareness of sin, as well as a desperate cry for help.
It is a sincere and desperate cry of the heart, that God’s Name would be honoured and that they would be helped.
God does not delight in seeing His people suffer, but often it takes suffering for people to see their need for God.
This is not just how we should pray when we are desperate, this is how we should pray all the time.
This, then, is how you should pray: ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. [Matthew 6:9-13]
Jesus makes it clear that this is the kind of posture and prayer that we should have before God.
A recognition of our dependence on God, a commitment to His honour and glory, and an honest expression of our weakness, our need, our guilt.
It is this honesty and humility that God is looking for, the kind of prayer that God delights in.
We do not need to be going through a desperate crisis to pray this way, but often we do not pray this way until we are desperate.
The fact is, we do depend on God, we are guilty before God, our situation is desperate apart from God.
God wants us to pray with this honesty and humility all the time, but sometimes He allows us to go through crisis to realize it.
God used the crisis of Israel – after years and years of warnings – to bring them to their senses, to teach them how to pray and relate to Him.
How is God teaching us how we should pray…
PRAYER:
Lord, teach me to pray with honesty and humility, and with genuine love for You.
God’s people are being destroyed by the enemy. His people come to Him in prayer so that once again He will visit them andd reconcile His people. At all times, in all my times, I need God. I need Him every hour. I depend on Him in the good times and the bad. In my joys and in my sorrows. Be my God so that the surrounding people may see Your power and might. Help me to praise you today and all my tomorrows. May one generation tell of Your faithfulness to the next. Help me to tell of Your mervies each and every day, for those mercies are new every morning to all who believe. Pour Your Spirit upon me so that I may see You every day in my walk and in my talks. At all times, I need to praise the living God – my God and Saviour.
Great is Thy faithfulness, O God my Father;
There is no shadow of turning with Thee;
Thou changest not, Thy compassions, they fail not;
As Thou hast been, Thou forever will be.
Refrain
Great is Thy faithfulness!
Great is Thy faithfulness!
Morning by morning new mercies I see.
All I have needed Thy hand hath provided;
Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me!
Summer and winter and springtime and harvest,
Sun, moon and stars in their courses above
Join with all nature in manifold witness
To Thy great faithfulness, mercy and love.
Refrain
Pardon for sin and a peace that endureth
Thine own dear presence to cheer and to guide;
Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow,
Blessings all mine, with ten thousand beside!