Isaiah 64:6 For all of us have become like one who is unclean, And all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment; And all of us wither like a leaf, And our iniquities, like the wind, take us away. 7 There is no one who calls on Your name, Who arouses himself to take hold of You; For You have hidden Your face from us And have delivered us into the power of our iniquities. 8 But now, O LORD, You are our Father, We are the clay, and You our potter; And all of us are the work of Your hand.
It is a startling thing to come to the realization that all people receive all things from the hand of the living and true God. It is even more startling to realize that God has no obligation to give any person anything at any time, though one could argue that He owes people justice and wrath since they have earned it. One can also argue that God owes His people all that Christ has purchased for them. But beyond those things and in those contexts, all the good things and benefits that God gives anyone is not because they have deserved it. It is also true that God does not give people good things because they pray for them, though that may be seen as a shocking statement, but perhaps the best way to look at it is that He moves us to pray before He gives them. This would teach us to seek Him to teach us (inwardly) how to pray and how to seek His face. This should teach us to seek Him for hearts to pray for the things that He will give us in Christ. So it should be an encouragement to pray.
In view of Isaiah 64:6-8, which shows us that we are in the hands of the Divine Potter and all we have to plead is our sin if we don’t have Christ, we should realize that we should come to the Father who is the Divine Potter seeking Him for a broken heart, true humility, and emptiness of self so that we could seek Him with a broken heart and true emptiness of self. We should desire for Him to fill us with Himself, so we should pray to be emptied of self and to be filled with Himself. Too often prayer is thought of as simply a list to ask God to give us, but when prayer is like that it is paltry and self-focused. Instead we should focus on the greatest gift that God gives and that is Himself, but it is also what truly glorifies His name.
It is also possible to say the words and have some desires toward seeking God in some way, but if the real or greatest desire is to be filled with Him for some selfish purpose, then we are not seeking God at all. When we seek God with the proper words and yet desire Him for selfish purposes, which can include arrogant and proud religious acts, this is a manifestation of the horrible sin of religious pride and even idolatry in trying to use God to exalt self in the eyes of others. If our idea of prayer amounts to using God and His name to gain things for self and for selfish ends, that is a horrible idolatry and a wicked use of religious things to gain honor for self. The Pharisees prayed in order to obtain honor from men, but this can be done in many ways as well. Just because we say the right words in something we think of as prayer is not the same thing as having a heart that desires right things, but instead our words can reflect a terrible hypocrisy in hiding our true hearts from others as we seek honor from them.
In true prayer we should seek to be willing clay in His hands with the desire to be nothing but instruments of glory for Him to manifest His glory through. Apart from desires like those, our prayers will be for self or will be seeking God for things for self. Prayer, then, is for men to come to God to be shaped rather than going to God in an effort to get God to be shaped by their prayers. We cannot pray for God’s name to be hallowed unless God has shaped our hearts and given us desires to pray that. If we do not have desires for His name to be hallowed and glorified, then we should be praying for God to give us hearts that desire for His name to be hallowed and glorified.
The only way our hearts can be changed from self-seeking hearts to seeking God for His own glory is for God to change our hearts. But the only way our hearts can be changed is if they become soft and pliable (like clay). This teaches those who want to truly pray to seek the Lord for hearts that are soft and pliable and can be and will be hearts that will be worked in the hands of the Divine Potter to be like Him and to desire Him and His glory. The Lord alone can do that work and we must recognize that He alone can do this and that we are in His hands to do with as He pleases. We should seek Him for true hearts in order to truly pray.
God Loves... Himself 
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