In the previous newsletter we started looking at Daniel 9:3-6. In that text (given a few paragraphs below) we noted that Daniel gave his attention to the Lord God to seek Him by prayer and in fact true prayer can only happen when our focus is on God to seek Him. If our attention is on ourselves, we are praying to ourselves just like the Pharisee did in Luke 18:10-13:
“Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11 “The Pharisee stood and was praying this to himself: ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other people: swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. 12 ‘I fast twice a week; I pay tithes of all that I get.’ 13 “But the tax collector, standing some distance away, was even unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven, but was beating his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, the sinner!’
It is chilling to think of the ramifications of this. The Pharisee was using the word “God” but was praying to himself. Why was he praying to himself? Because he was focused on himself or his attention was on himself. The tax collector, however, was focused on God. It might be argued that the tax collector was also focused on himself because he saw his sin and was crying out for mercy. On the other hand, however, a true sight of sin only comes from a sight of God. If the tax collector was truly broken for his sin, then he saw his sin in the light of the glory of God and his attention was on God. To truly see sin our eyes must not be on self but on God. If we truly have our eyes on God then our sin is seen as a far more hideous thing than if we see it in the light of self.
What we must see in this is that true prayer has its focus and attention on God. Prayer for other people must in some way be with a focus on God or we are idolaters in our prayers. The Great Commandment reaches to our prayers and all things; it is not to be left at the door of the prayer closet. The focus of our minds and our hearts must be on God. A child in school can be said to pay attention if s/he listens to the teacher enough to regurgitate some information. But for a human being to pay attention to the living God in this way the heart must be engaged and God must be the attention of our love as well. If we give God our attention with our minds and our hearts are not attending in love, then we are doing nothing but giving lip service to God and bringing up an idol into His presence with the things we love. We can pray for a church, a person, an evangelistic program, another nation or any other thing and have it be idolatry because it is not out of love for God. We cannot give our attention to religious things and think that alone is love for God. That is what the Pharisees did. If we are to give our true attention to God He must be the real object of our love and what we pray for must be out of a true love for Him.
In prayer the desires and loves of the heart is what we truly seek. If our “love” is for another person, we may seek God for that person. But here is a tricky point that deceives us. We can seek God for that other person and that can be idolatry on our part. If we “love” the person and seek their benefit more than we are seeking God, we are seeking what we truly love and that is the other person. Instead of seeking God for another person, we must seek God first in our prayers for other people. If we seek God for another person and our real love and desire is for the other person, then we are seeking them more than God. That is idolatry. This is a brutally hard teaching, but that does not make it false. What we give our real attention to in prayer is our real desire. What we love the most is what our real intention is about. It is not true prayer to seek God for the sake of another human being if we don’t love God first and foremost. We are to seek God for Himself and the other human being for Himself as well.
Daniel 9:3 So I gave my attention to the Lord God to seek Him by prayer and supplications, with fasting, sackcloth and ashes. 4 I prayed to the LORD my God and confessed and said, “Alas, O Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps His covenant and lovingkindness for those who love Him and keep His commandments, 5 we have sinned, committed iniquity, acted wickedly and rebelled, even turning aside from Your commandments and ordinances. 6 “Moreover, we have not listened to Your servants the prophets, who spoke in Your name to our kings, our princes, our fathers and all the people of the land.
Daniel gave his attention to the Lord God to seek Him. Here is the sign of a great heart. It seeks God for Himself and His glory. The literal words for “gave my attention” is “I set my face.” Daniel set his face toward God and it was not toward himself or nor any other. His focus was set on God. The fact that Daniel set his face toward God and so sought God rather than himself as the Pharisee in Luke 18 did is seen in the way he sought God. He did not just turn his face toward God momentarily, but he set his face toward God which shows the intent and resolve of the heart in love and desire to have God. He sought God in prayer and supplications with fasting, sackcloth, and ashes. When we reach the end of our own strength and grow weary of religion, we will either stop doing the externals or we will set our faces to seek the Lord. The heart that is sick of the world and religious things is a heart that is set on God and is going to seek Him regardless of what happens to it.
Our souls can grow famished as we work and work on our buildings, projects, programs and all the “Christian” things we do that in reality can and often do keep us from a sight of the glory of God. We can be so busy with “Christian” things that we miss the glory of God in Christ. We can become so busy doing things for Christ (in our minds) that we forget all about the true Christ. We can be so busy talking about something we term as Christ that it hides the true Christ from us. We can become so busy teaching our theology and focusing on getting the dots in the right places that we forget the God of the theology. We are so busy thinking we are serving and defending God that we are serving and defending ourselves with His name attached. We can become so busy trying to grow and do church that we forget the Head of the church in reality and serve ourselves thinking we are doing it for Him.
Much can be done in the name of religion without our setting our faces to seek God Himself. Much can be done in the name of seeking God without our setting our faces to seek God. Much can be done in the area of external morality without our setting our faces to a true seeking of God. Evangelism can be done without our setting our faces to seek God. If evangelism is done in an effort to grow a church rather than to manifest the glory of God, then it is not done with our faces set to seek God out of true love. Evangelism has replaced a true seeking of God in many places. We have placed evangelism on such a high pedestal that we automatically think we are serving God if we do it. Evangelism can be done out of nothing more than self-love without our setting our faces to seek God.
It is utterly vital for churches to get to the very deepest intent of their hearts so prayer and all things will be done from hearts that are set on seeking God for Himself and not things. Regardless of the devotion, commitment, and religious ardor that we have, unless our faces are set on seeking God from the heart, we are not seeking God in our duties. Two important words from the NAS translation are very important to understanding this. “So I gave my attention to the Lord God to seek Him by prayer and supplications, with fasting, sackcloth and ashes.” Daniel tells us that he is going to seek the Lord God by prayer. In other words, the way one seeks God is by prayer. So prayer was the primary means that he was seeking God. He was going to seek God by prayer but with fasting, sackcloth and ashes. The latter things were methods he was using in his prayer to seek the Lord. They were not ways to seek the Lord themselves, but they were ways Daniel used to seek the Lord in prayer. We can fast and use sackcloth for differing reasons, as indeed many Israelites did, but Daniel used them as a means of seeking the Lord in prayer.
The Word of God is teaching us in this prayer of Daniel that we are to set our faces to seek Him in prayer. We are not to seek other things as ways to please God, but we are to seek God Himself in prayer. Prayer is how God is to be sought. Unless we are seeking God in our prayers, we are seeking ourselves in some way. We should also notice that prayer is a broader term than supplication. Supplication is to ask of God. Other parts of prayer would be confession and worship. Prayer is the way that the soul seeks God. Supplication is simply one part of prayer that asks God for things to help it seek Him. What else would a supplication ask for if it is part of a prayer that is seeking God? Fasting is not some meritorious act that we do in an effort to get God to do something, but it is an act of humbling the soul before God in order to focus the attention on God rather than earthly things. When fasting is done in truth it is the soul setting aside what is important for the body in order to sharpen its attention and focus on God who is its true desire. It is a humbling act that shows its utter dependence on God rather than food. Ezra 8:21 shows this: “Then I proclaimed a fast there at the river of Ahava, that we might humble ourselves before our God to seek from Him a safe journey for us, our little ones, and all our possessions.” Here we see a fast proclaimed for the purpose of humbling themselves before God in order to seek from Him. The reason is given in v. 22. They did not want to dishonor God in what they did. They fasted in order to seek the Lord for His own glory. True prayer may seek things from God, but it will be seeking Him and His glory. Unless we seek God Himself, we are not in prayer which includes worship. Without seeking the glory of God primarily in prayer, we are seeking an idol. It is vital to set our faces to seek Him and use such things as fasting to focus our attention. We must truly pray.
God Loves... Himself 
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