Jesus says: Treat others like God treats you

One of the fantastic assumptions in the teachings of Jesus is that God hears and answers our prayers.  In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus said:

"Ask and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.  For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.  Or what man is there among you who, when his son asks for a loaf, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, he will not give him a snake will he?  If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask Him!" ~ (Matthew 7:7-11; NASB)

Jesus assures us that God treats His children just like you, as a loving parent, would treat your children.  God isn't a cosmic trickster.  God is a loving Father who cares for His own, and is always looking out for their well being.  If you are truly in need of something, Jesus promises us that we can count on God to take care of us.  All we need to do is simply make our requests known to God, and sit back as we watch Him deliver.

This is a pretty simple and straight forward teaching, and while it would be easy to kick it up a notch and spend an hour preaching a sermon on this topic with a Pentecostal flare, such a thing would be inappropriate.

For when Jesus taught on prayer, the emphasis of His teaching was never really on prayer itself per say.  While there is a place for expounding on the way we ought to pray, who we ought to pray for, when we ought to pray, how long we ought to pray, and other such things, Jesus didn't care to address those issues too deeply.  And if you are reading His teaching on prayer in such a way, you are reading things wrongly.

Rather, when Jesus taught on prayer, He always had an eye on how you were going to behave as a result of praying.  For Jesus, prayer isn't a means by which we get things from God so much as it is a means by which God transforms us through our praying, and how we live our lives after having prayed.

And this teaching on the Sermon on the Mount follows this normal pattern of Jesus in His teaching on prayer.  He ends His teaching on prayer by saying:

"In everything, therefore, treat people the same way you want them to treat you, for this is the Law and the prophets." ~ (Matthew 7:12; NASB)

Take notice of the word "therefore" in the above verse.  It is a word that logical connects us with what was just said to what is getting ready to be said.  As Dr. Tatum used to say in my methods of Bible study class in college, "Whenever you see a 'therefore' ask what the 'therefore' is there for."  

So what is the "therefore" there for?  Jesus says as a result of praying, and seeing God treat us like we would treat our own children, we should therefore treat people in the same way we would want to be treated.

Or in other words, treat other people in the same way you want God to treat you:  

• If you are ever in doubt as to how you should treat somebody else in any given situation, you should treat them in the exact same way you would want your Heavenly Father to treat you.  
• If somebody has wronged you, forgive them, because you want God to forgive you.  
• If somebody keeps doing stupid stuff, be patient with them as they work through their stupidity, just as you want God to be patient with you as you work through your stupid moments.  
• Instead of neglecting others and acting in some sort of passive aggressive manner with people, actively look out for their well being, just as God is actively looking out for your well being.  
• If somebody wants you to help them with something, give them your all, just as God has given you His.  Don't half do anything, because God has never half done anything for you.
• If you receive bad service at a restaurant, leave a good tip anyway, knowing that even when you serve God poorly, you still want Him to bless you with abundant grace and mercy.
• If somebody is looking for your attention, don't keep putting them off, as God always gives you His attention, and never puts you off.
• If you owe somebody money, make paying them back your number one priority, as you live in expectation that God will take care of you financially.

No wonder theologians have dubbed this verse of Scripture "The Golden Rule."

Can you imagine what our lives would begin to look like if we lived this way?  Can you imagine the value our lives would bring to this world and those around us?

We would become like God to them.  

And that's exactly the point of this teaching on prayer.  Stop praying merely to get stuff.  Such teaching is Sunday-schoolish.  Instead, live your life in a way as if you were going about the world granting the prayers of others.

Live in such a way in your behavior to others that you answer their petitions and requests to you in the exact same way that God answers your prayers. Go the extra mile.  Hold nothing back.  Look out for their well being.  Touch their lives just as God has touched yours.

If you want to radicalize your prayer life, radicalize your prayer life by changing how you treat others.

Jesus says: Stop Praying Long Prayers

"And when you are praying, do not use meaningless repetition as the Gentiles do, for they suppose that they will be heard for their many words.  So do not be like them; for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him."  (Matthew 6:7-8; NASB)

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus taught us that prayer is not supposed to be a cardio vascular workout.

Yet in a great deal of irony, in some Christian circles, it is quite fashionable to connect one's spiritual strength and maturity to the amount of time one spends praying.  Lord knows I've been guilty of this.  And I've often guilt-tripped others for their lack of praying.  For in the Pentecostal tradition I come from, we have this tendency to think of prayer in terms of a long marathon, and liken it unto delivering a baby, whereas Jesus thought of prayer as something more like a short sprint or a power nap.

That of course is not to say that there aren't to be times in our lives that we engage in prayer for long periods of time.  The Bible talks about such things too.  After all, Jesus spent 40 days in the wilderness fasting and praying.  And the night when Jesus was betrayed, He "tarried" in prayer for over three hours.  And we read in the book of Acts that the apostles and church gathered together for long times of prayer.

But for the everydayness of life, prayer does not need to be this long drawn out thing.  While prayer is essential to the life of a Christian, you should't feel guilty if your prayer life doesn't measure up to the "giants" of the Christian faith.

God hears your prayers, whether you only spend 5 minutes in prayer a day or 5 hours!

If you were to study the Bible closely, you'll discover that the average time the great men of faith and power spent in prayer was actually pretty short.  Their prayers were marked by very few words. And when the Lord taught us to pray, His model prayer was marked by extreme brevity.  It was something you could say in well under a minute.

I think that your prayer life should be a lot like marriage.

My wife and I when we first got married, we spent two weeks together on our honeymoon.  And since then, we have times where we slip away for a few days just to be with each other.  But in the day-in-day-out of our relationship, we don't spend hours upon hours talking to one another.  We briefly acknowledge each other in our morning routine as we get ready for work.  We might send a text message or two back and forth throughout the day.  Then once we get off work and we settle in for the evening, we spend a little time chatting for the remainder of the night. And if we have something important to talk, we will spend a longer time conversing and hashing those things out.

But, the vast majority of the time my wife and I spend together, we don't spend in conversation, but we spend it simply just enjoying life together.  That is what we got married for after all!  And so it should be with us in the Lord.  In fact, I think if I spent hours upon hours talking to my wife every single day, it would probably hurt our relationship in the long run.

And so it is with God.  If you want to risk destroying your relationship with God, spending hours upon hours a day in prayer is a great way to do that!  Take that as a word of wisdom from somebody who used to spend a couple hours a day in prayer with God on a regular basis.  It did not make my relationship with the Lord any better, in fact, I would argue that it made things worse.  And such praying had a tendency to hurt my relationship with others as well.

Talk to the Lord.  Keep the lines of communication open.  Tell Him what you are thinking, and listen back.  Have some quiet time from time to time.  But above all, live your life in the mere enjoyment of the Lord.  And if you are in need of something or see somebody else in need of something, take a minute or two out of your day and simply let God know.  You don't have to work yourself into a psychotic frenzy to see God respond. You need not pray in tongues for hours upon hours to see God at work in your life, or the life of others.  Do all things by prayer, but don't spend forever and a day in your prayer closet.  Get out into the world.

For it's just as Jesus said.  God already knows what our need is.  He will respond simply by us entrusting all of our cares to Him, for we are in close relationship with Him.  He's walking along with us in the cool of the day, participating in our life.  We don't need to spend hours upon hours running our mouths and yapping God's head off.  We just need to point things out from time to time.

That's what prayer is really supposed to be like.

Standing on the line.

When I saw the above picture, taken on Jan. 24, 2014 in Kiev, Ukraine, I became angry.

I became angry because I feel that many Christians in America simply cannot identify with what is going on in the above picture. In the very center of a violent and deadly protests in Ukraine, some orthodox priests stood between protestors and police and prayed. They didn't stand on the side of the protestors. They didn't stand on the side with the armed government officials.

These priests literally "stood in the gap" between the two sides, lifted up the cross, and interceeded to God and cried out to God for peace.

Everybody else took sides.

Take for example, Roman Catholic cardinal and archbishop of New York, Timothy Dolan. Not that I care all that much about the leanings of most Roman Catholic officials. However, I think his attitude is prophetically telling of that of the church in general in America. He's reported saying: “We Catholics in the United States cannot let these brave Ukrainians, whose allegiance to their religious convictions has survived 'dungeon, fire, and sword,” languish. They deserve our voices and our prayers.'" He added: "Nor can we as American citizens fail them, as we call for our government to stand with them."

Instead of standing in the gap, lifting up the cross, and interceeding to God and crying out for peace, the archbishop has called on American's to not fail the citizens of Ukraine, and exhorted us to pick sides. The end outcome of such a behavior, ultimately, will manifest itself in further conflict, and perhaps even war.

In an age where men draw lines in the sand and tell everybody to pick a side, these priests dared to stand on the line that men drew. They didn't choose a side. They chose God. They chose the peace that Jesus Christ came to bring, and offered it to the rest of the world. It is a peace which many Christians in America, who are so used to picking sides simply cannot indentify with, because their minds cannot divorce their identities from nationalistic and patriotic ideals. It's the type of peace that keeps men from killing other men.

In the words of the late Art Kazt, Christians in America are "far too American." And that is why we as American Christians cannot identify with these priests. This is what makes me so angry.

As a reuslt of not knowing the peace Christ came to bring to this world (which we limit primarily to warm fuzzy feelings), and not having out identities grounded in our understanding that we are citizens of the kingdom of God, we go along with the rest of this fallen world: We choose sides.