God Loves… Himself

“Pride, we may be sure will keep us out of God’s presence, because it would not suffer angels themselves to stay in it” (Edward Pelling, 1692).

If pride and self are the very heart of what it means to be fallen human beings, then we should take the whole issue of pride far more seriously than we do. While pride is a terrible thing in an unregenerate and non-religious man, it may be that far worse is pride in a religious man. If we take the pages of the Old Testament as a whole, we see that those who had the oracles of God and the religion revealed by God were judged far worse than the surrounding nations who were outwardly worse than the Israelites. If we take the pages of the New Testament as a whole, we see that the very religious (scribes and Pharisees) who thought they were righteous were judged by Christ to be far worse than the openly sinful.

If God hates pride and His eye is on it to bring it down, then all the religious things of men are utterly worthless in His sight. If God hates pride, then all the orthodox theology and creeds cannot cover a man from the wrath of God. If God hates pride, then all the external forms of prayer will not cover a man from the wrath of God. If God hates pride, then all the external forms of worship will not cover a man from the wrath of God. If God hates pride, then all the good works a man can do will not cover a man from the wrath of God. If God hates pride, then all the preaching (even if orthodox and expositional) in the world will not cover a man from the wrath of God.

If God hates pride and person A is full of pride, as stated above, then all that person’s theology and creeds would only be coming from a proud heart and for a proud heart. If God hates pride and person A is full of pride, then person A’s prayer comes from a proud heart and is opposed by God. If God hates pride and person A is full of pride, then all the forms of worship would be from a proud heart and for a proud heart. If God hates pride and person A is full of pride, then all the good works a man does is from a proud heart and for a proud heart. If God hates pride and person A is full of pride, then all the preaching that a man can do or anyone can listen to will be from a proud heart and for a proud heart.

All the religious or spiritual things that Scripture sets out for us are to be done from humble hearts full of grace seeking the face of God. So if we do them from pride and for pride, though indeed we may not admit that and may be blinded to it, we are using the things that are meant to enable us to seek God and we use them to seek the things of self. Pride takes the things of God and uses them for self. Pride takes the holiest of things and uses them for unholy self and pride.

II Chronicles is quite clear that we are to humble ourselves and pray and seek the face of the Lord, which clearly shows us that if we don’t humble ourselves our prayer is not in seeking the face of the Lord but in seeking for things from God for self. We are told in Hebrews 4 that in prayer we are to come to the throne of grace in order to obtain grace, yet we know that God opposes the proud and gives grace to the humble. The proud person may realize that s/he needs some help, but the proud person does not realize the need for grace to do it all. If we go to a throne of grace, while we are to come with confidence, that is not the same thing as coming with pride in the heart. We can come to the throne of grace only in great humility. We can only seek grace if we come with humility.

Somehow and in someway we must see that pride in the heart ruins all true Christianity regardless of all the externals of it. If we could only see the horrible and ruinous effects of pride in our own souls, we would cry out to God to tear it from us regardless of the pain. But we see pride as more of a nuisance than as the worst thing in the universe for our souls. Pride earns damnation and the wrath of God. Pride ruins every prayer offered in pride and makes it as incense offered to an idol. Pride ruins every good work and makes it the sacrifice of the devil. Pride ruins all worship toward God and makes it the worship and adoration of man. Pride turns every sermon it is involved in into an act of self-glory for the preacher. Pride will even take something thought of as humility and raise itself up in boasting for its false humility. Pride is in some sense the very devil incarnate in the human soul. When people think that they can offer true worship to God apart from being emptied of pride is simply an astounding blindness worked by pride. How anyone can think that a person can be converted without being humbled is simply a great ignorance at best. God teaches the humble His way (Psa 25:9), but only them.

While being down and out in terms of being able to move around, I have watched several documentaries on gangs in prison and the historical background on the risings of street gangs. One thing that has struck me with some degree of power is that men will justify their behavior for murder and anything else by blaming others or by comparing themselves to others. Men will work hard to come up with some standard that will allow them to think of themselves as righteous.

One man, though he had killed and murdered between twenty and thirty men, was horrified that some would consider killing women and children. Others thought it was a terrible thing that men would kill just to make money, but had no problem with it as long as it was for power in the prison system. Still others wanted to blame their selling of drugs and multiple shootings on those of another race that they blamed their poverty on. Another man wanted to blame his many murders, his practice of sodomy, and his many other crimes on the fact that had been treated badly in school and then beaten in prison. Without arguing that those are not secondary causes in his life of crime and sin, he seemed to refuse to accept the fact that he was a sinner.

The Bible is so clear on the subject of murder that it seems so obvious, but the power of the depraved heart to come up with reasons and excuses for killing others appears to be almost unlimited. This strange aptitude or even power in the heart seems to have been a result of the fall. Adam blamed Eve and God and Eve blamed the devil. The human heart is given over to drink iniquity like water, but it is also given over to blame others and come up with excuses for its sin. Scripture is quite clear that on that day no man will have an excuse. On that day all will see their sin and the judicial hardening for sin that blinds people now will then be used to give light to the eyes.

John Calvin taught that the human heart is nothing more (so to speak) than an idol factory, but we can also see that part of being a factory of idols the human heart excuses its idols with even more idols. The human heart is full of self and so self is used to excuse self for all the behaviors of self. We see this in children from an early age when their anger is pointed out, they will reply that my brother or sister made me angry. Instead of seeing their own hearts as wicked and sinful and how that anger itself demonstrates sinful hearts, they try to blame others for their anger rather than accepting the fact of their own sinful hearts.

Part of true confession of sin is to confess what we are and that without any excuses. Part of repentance is to repent of all known sin and that without any excuses. Christians are saved from all their sin and not just their sins they have committed not counting excuses. The Gospel of Jesus Christ comes to real sinners and to those who have sinful hearts, but for those who prefer to continue making excuses and looking for reasons other than their own sinful hearts for what they have done, there is no real repentance and no real confession. Those are the people who continue to look for ways to excuse themselves and to find a firm stand upon which to base their own righteousness. But for those who truly confess their sins and leave no hope for themselves other than Christ, those are the ones that Christ saves.

The movement and teachings of psychology in our day seems focused on finding reasons to excuse sin (or bad behavior). Freud seemed particularly adept at finding reasons to blame parents for the faults of children and today some blame society and others blame something else. But it is so hard for people to bow before the sovereign Lord of this universe and admit that they are sinners by nature and that all of their bad behavior, bad thoughts, bad intents and so on come from their own wicked hearts. Other people make it easier for our hearts to break out in sin, but they do not cause it. People provide us with opportunities to sin, but they don’t cause it.

It may make us feel better or feel more comfortable with ourselves being able to blame others, but that is a way of destruction. The heart must come face to face with itself and confess its sin or it will remain in darkness and in that sin. Part of repentance would be turning from trying to blame others and taking the blame for my sinful heart and what comes from it. Trying to find others to blame for my actions is an effort to hide my sinful heart from me. How we should all cry out to God to open our eyes and show us our sin and the sin of trying to excuse our sin. In trying to excuse our sin, we demonstrate a heart that does not want to repent of sin and a heart that does not see just how sinful it really is.

Jesus said that sinners are to strive (agonize) to enter the kingdom because many will “seek” to enter and not be able (Luke 13:24). It appears that no one really believers this any longer. This verse can be denied by appealing to justification by faith alone and saying that all a person needs to do is believe. It can be denied by saying that it falls under the teaching of Scripture as Law rather than Gospel. It can be denied by the American way of life which thinks that eternal things are easy and so we focus on the life that we now live.

Could it be the case that the biblical doctrine of justification is really at odds with the teachings of Jesus? Were the hard teachings of Jesus really of the Law rather than the Gospel? At best it would seem odd that the teachings of Jesus could be categorized under Law rather than Gospel, so perhaps our modern day is just plain wrong on what justification by faith alone means, or at least how it fits with the plain teachings of Jesus. It just may be that the Pelagian way of thinking about faith has entered into the Reformed way of thinking in our day.

The Bible teaches us quite clearly that the Gospel is of grace alone and comes to the sinner by faith alone. It is by faith alone that it may be by sovereign grace alone. This should show us with some degree of clarity that there may be a huge difference between what the Bible teaches is true faith and what modern people think of as belief. It is a vast difference between a sovereign grace that gives and works faith in the heart that it may receive Christ and grace and that of a person simply believing some basic facts that happened in history. The teaching concerning faith is that faith is focused on Christ and is not thought of apart from unity with Christ, but a belief in Christ can simply be the Pelagian making himself believe certain facts. True faith comes from and is centered upon God, but a simple believing the facts can come from self and be focused on self.

We can see the difference, then, between being justified by faith and being saved when a person has a belief. A person that is truly justified by faith is a person that has been given a believing (faithing) heart and so believes (faiths) as a way of life and is what the soul does. The person with true faith is a person that is united to Christ and so the very life of his soul is Christ. The person that believes some facts is a person that must work to keep believing and the life that comes from that belief is from self.

The person that has Christ by grace and so has a heart that has faith in Christ on a continual basis is a person that can strive and agonize because that person’s striving and agonizing is by grace. This striving and agonizing is that the person wants to do as this person wants to see sin defeated and for grace to reign in his or her heart. As this person is striving away against the flesh and pants and longs after God, this person does not think of it as works or as earning at all. This person simply sees it as the Spirit and the flesh at war and as any death to the flesh as being a work of grace.

There is no such thing as a simple belief in the Gospel because the true faith of the believer has been planned from all eternity past, purchased by Christ in Israel 2000 years ago, and applied at the mere pleasure of God as the Spirit blows in the hearts of the elect. It is not a simple believing but is instead the power and grace of God in overcoming death in the soul and the planting of life in the soul. Faith should not be thought of as synonymous with a simple believing of the facts, but instead as unity with Christ and so as connected with the flowing of eternal life from the indwelling Christ.

It is so easy to take a glorious truth and then have the focus changed from God to self. But the doctrine of justification by faith alone should never be moved from its eternal moorings in eternity, grace, and in Christ. The doctrine of justification should never be removed from the intent of justification which is so that God will dwell in men and He will be their light and life. Christ Himself was the very tabernacle of God while He was on the earth in a body, but now the people of God are the very temple of the living God. The living God does not depend on His people to do things for Him, but instead they are to rest completely in Him as they labor by the power of grace.

The Scriptures make it quite clear that all people will end up in one of two places and/or states for all eternity. The very fact that one of those places is a place where there is an endless and unmitigated torment should give people some pause to think about where they will spend eternity. But even more, when the Scriptures speak of how many people will be deceived and how few will enter into eternity, one would think that the major issue of life would be given to the search after truth and God. Then again, we are told that there are two roads that people are on. One is a broad road and the other is a narrow road. These two roads do not describe the condition of all the people in the world, but all those who think that they are on the road to heaven. There are also two corresponding gates that people enter and one of those is broad and one of those is narrow. Oh how this should wake the sleeping religious people awake!

Matthew 7:13 “Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it.14 “For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it.

The words of Jesus do not say that nice people are on the narrow way and are the few that will find their way to life. He did not tell the people that the greatest evangelists would be among those on the narrow way. He did not say that the best people and the most religious people would be on the narrow path and so enter into eternity. We must recall that among His listeners were some very religious and very moral people, and in the broader scope of His ministry Jesus spoke very sternly to and about them (the scribes and the Pharisees). What is it about the human soul that makes it think that the hard things of Scripture are always about other people?

This text of Scripture should burn its way into our hearts and faithful men of God (preachers and teachers) should burn this text into the souls of others. There are many who will enter through the wide gate and there are few who will find the narrow gate, yet only the narrow gate is the gate to life. Instead of these brutal and pointed words about reality, in our day men tickle the ears of people and do the devil’s work of getting them to pray the so-called sinner’s prayer or to walk an aisle. The religious way today is to make things easy for people and to be sweet and winsome in order not to run them off, but all that does is run off those who are under conviction and help deceive others who are on the broad road. It is to set up a broad gate for people who think they are on the road to heaven and instead are on the road that leads to eternal damnation.

Perhaps the real problem is that there are a vast number of ministers who are not convinced beyond the shallows of the brain that there is an eternity where people will spend and that there is indeed a narrow and a broad gate and road. The devil has quite an easy way today in deceiving people as he has so many happy and willing helpers. They can range from the well-dressed ministers on television to the silky tongue ministers at the local level. These men are not just the ignorant man from the woods somewhere, these are men who are heads of denominations and perhaps highly thought of. We have become too civil, too winsome, and too concerned for our positions to preach a devil’s hell and the fact that the churches may be filled with unconverted people. We have ministers and chaplains who think it is their job to comfort people and make them feel good rather than to awaken them to the reality that the flames of hell are licking at their feet.

We have many in the ministry who will preach long and involved expositional sermons, yet those are without any warnings of eternity and any real teaching of Christ and His Gospel. We have many programs that focus on all sorts of degrees, but where are classed on how to help people be awakened to their lost and damnable condition? We have men who will teach lengthy classes in schools and churches on all sorts of subjects, but nothing is brought to bear upon the conscience of the people that they are teaching. It is far easier to teach about things than it is to bring the Word of God to bear upon the consciences of the people.

It is also far easier to get a people educated about the doctrines of the Church than it is to get them awakened to their lost condition. It is far easier to get people to see the truth of justification by faith alone than it is to get them to see just how lost they are and how impossible it is for them to obtain faith in their own strength. So we go on in our day reading and teaching the words of Jesus about the wide and the narrow gate and path and in reality we are ignoring those solemn and searching words. The Church as a whole is guilty of giving potions to people that helps them doze as they continue on the wide road to eternal damnation. Shall we pray (er, sleep)? It is too easy to say words that we may think of as prayer as we lull ourselves to sleep while ourselves and others are on the wide road.

Why are people satisfied with religion (orthodox Christianity) rather than the presence of God? Why were the people in the nation of Israel so satisfied to seek after the world, false gods, and anything and all other things rather than God Himself? Why were the Pharisees and the Scribes so content to seek scholarly things and religious things rather than God? Why have men and women since the New Testament times been so willing to seek the things of religion rather than the things of God? Why are people satisfied with evangelism and getting people to pray prayers and walk down aisles rather than true evangelism?

The answer to all the questions above (and more just like them) has to do with the heart of man. Human beings are born dead in sin and trespasses and that involves a love for self and the honor of self, which also includes pride. Flowing from and out of that pride and love for self is an enmity toward God and the things of God. Every sin that man has ever committed has involved two principle things. One, the sin was against God. Two, the sin was out of pride and for self.

A man can be as orthodox as a man can get and still be proud of his orthodoxy and hate the God of that orthodoxy. A man can be a great scholar in the things of Christianity and still be a lover of self and a hater of God. A man can still be as religious as a person can possibly be and still be a hater of God that is as full of self and pride as a man can be. A man can be a great evangelist, perhaps reaching thousands of people with a message that is largely true in content, and still be full of love for self and hatred of God.

Men can be great preachers (or not) and have large churches (in one sense) with great accolades from their peers, yet that person be full of the love of his own glory and hate the glory of God. Men will pride themselves on their expository preaching in exalting self (in all humility of course) while they miss the very glory of God in Christ shining in and through the text. The press can pour out very learned volumes from the pen and/or keyboard of a man while that man’s heart pours out hatred of the true God and love for self. Men can pray long prayers and yet pray out of self love and hatred for the true God.

But of course all of these things (and more) do not really answer the original question, but they do enhance it. People are satisfied with religion rather than God because they are satisfied with what self can do and they hate the doctrines and God of all grace. Men will be their own saviors out of pride and will not have the true God to rule over them. Men will have a way of salvation that honors God in some way, yet they want some control to be in their own hands. Men will even have hard ways of salvation, yet they will not have the God who requires all from them. Men will have a way of salvation that tells them that they cannot do it all, but they will not have the Gospel of grace that demands that they do nothing and look to grace alone.

People are satisfied with religion rather than the presence of God because their unholy pride and unholy self cannot abide with such holiness. They are satisfied with religion because true religion requires that they die to self and they will not die to self. They are satisfied with religion because they hate humility and love their pride. They are satisfied with religion because they can still live to their own religious glory.

Men are satisfied with religion because they can keep their creeds and their deeds without looking to God to change their hearts. Men are satisfied with religion because they retain control of their tongues and lives rather than having Christ as Lord. Men are satisfied with religion because they are lord of self and live as they please rather than live and die as Christ pleases. Men are satisfied with religion because they can be nice to people rather than to love them. Men can be satisfied with religion because it will never require them to do what they cannot do and it will never require them to look to grace alone. As long as religion says man can be orthodox if he believes a creed and moral if he obeys such a law, there will be many that flock to that. But to come in the presence of the living God is to fall on our faces and know that we are full of self and pride and we cannot humble ourselves before Him. Even that is the work of grace in the heart. It is to be before God as one emptied and humbled and to know that we completely and utterly dependent on grace and grace alone for salvation and all things. Oh how the glory of Christ and His grace shines in this.

When one thinks of life and of prayer it is clear that human beings are unbroken and yet do not see why that it is a problem. It is a mystifying question when we see that the Bible is so full of the need for humility and brokenness in all parts of life. We are told that God dwells with humble and the contrite, so why will people not seek humility and contrition? We are told that God looks upon the humble, so why will people not seek humility? We are told that the only acceptable sacrifice to God is a broken spirit, so why will people not seek a broken spirit? Why are people so satisfied with religion and their unbroken hearts?

While questions like these could go on and on, the basic question that takes them all into account is this: why will men not seek to truly be broken before God? On the one hand there is the secret atheism that is in the heart of men and so they don’t believe in the true God but instead of the god that they have formed in their imaginations. On the other hand it could be that men are ignorant or perhaps deceived about the nature of God, the Gospel, and true holiness. Another aspect of both of the two reasons is that men love themselves and they refuse to believe or submit to a God that makes them uncomfortable and wrests control from them.

Psalm 51:17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; A broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.

Isaiah 57:15 For thus says the high and exalted One Who lives forever, whose name is Holy, “I dwell on a high and holy place, And also with the contrite and lowly of spirit In order to revive the spirit of the lowly And to revive the heart of the contrite.

Isaiah 66:2 “For My hand made all these things, Thus all these things came into being,” declares the LORD. “But to this one I will look, To him who is humble and contrite of spirit, and who trembles at My word.

The Scriptures could be repeated many, many times over that point to this, but the ones just above are sufficient to show just how important this humbled and broken heart are. While the old Puritans (both in England and America) taught that the soul must be humbled and broken before it could be saved, that is denied today. However, without this humility and brokenness of the heart man will rest in and trust in himself rather than God. Without the humility man will rest in his own decision and believe in a false god of himself as sovereign. There is no real option in the matter, either one lives as if God is sovereign or one lives as if self is sovereign in some way.

Now if people think that a person can be converted without a humble heart, then it is easy to see why they want to be able to be holy on their own terms and by their own will as well. If people think that a person can be converted and live holy by their own will, then surely they can pray apart from being humbled as well. It remains one of the most shocking things in the world that men can think that they can keep their proud and self-centered hearts and be saved. What does it mean to be converted if a person’s heart is not changed in reality? What can it mean to be saved from sin while one remains in the heart of sins which is self?

It is no wonder that the proud hearts of men will resist this humbling, but one would think that it would be obvious that if a proud heart is opposed by God and yet the humble receive grace that men would see the utter necessity of humility. When Jesus taught that a person must be turned/converted and become like a small child in order to enter the kingdom (Matthew 18), one would think that this (become like a small child, helpless, humbled) would at least be seen as necessary for salvation and the Christian life. But it is not so. One would think that if the dwelling place of the Lord Jesus Christ is indeed the human heart that people would recognize that He would not have His throne in and dwell in such a filthy and stinking corrupt place as an unhumbled heart, but it is not so.

Men will not seek a broken heart before God because they do not want to be humbled and delivered from self-rule, self-control, and self-love. They love the brat of hell (pride) and do not want to give it up even if it means that they will go to everlasting torment where that brat of hell will be tormented, but instead they will try to suppress the truth of humility in the unrighteousness of pride. Instead of crying out to God to be changed from a proud heart they will try to change God into a god of their own devices. The issue is whether God or self will reign in the heart. Men love themselves in their pride and want a salvation that leaves them with their pride and self-love. Oh, they think, God will not send someone like me to hell. When they lift their eyes in hell all of their self-deception will be swept away and they will see what it means to be given over to a heart that is hardened in pride and self-love.

For a heart to truly pray it must be humbled and in subjection to the Lord Jesus Christ (II Chronicles 7:14). Each soul and each church and each nation has a great, great need of prayer, but if that is so then the need for humility of heart and subjection of heart is as great. But why is this subjection and humility of heart so rare? There are perhaps many reasons, but one of them is that people simply don’t know about it. A second reason is that people seem to think that prayer is an act of their own will, so they don’t seek to be humbled in order to pray. This has led to an appalling lack of prayer in personal lives, churches, and across the nation.

For a person to truly pray there will be a spiritual battle, but if there is no recognition of what true prayer is, this battle is unknown and ignored. Why must there be this spiritual battle? It is the battle between the flesh and the work of the Spirit in the heart. The flesh must be subdued in its love for self and its focus and trust in self for a true resting in Christ alone during prayer to occur. It would seem to be quite self-evident that a soul cannot trust in Christ alone during prayer if it is looking to itself for strength to pray. It would seem as self-evident that a proud heart that trusts in self to pray cannot go to a throne of grace to receive grace. But the proud heart of those who trust in their own works, their religion, and perhaps their own orthodoxy blind the people to their lack of humility and subjection of the heart and so they are blinded by their own efforts in prayer and religious things. How insidious it is when pride works to the deception of the heart so that even the prayers of people deceive them as to the true state of their souls.

What is the spiritual battle that a heart must go through to truly pray for His will to be done when the heart is in a fiery trial? The spiritual battle that a heart goes through is to die to what it wants and submit to the living God in what He desires. The great I-dol of self wants to determine what happens to it and it wants to please itself, but God is sovereign over all things at all times. The great battle in prayer is for the flesh to be humbled and subjected by grace and not the will itself (which is nothing more than self) so that it can and will pray from the depths of the soul for the will of God to done rather than the will of self to be done. In the modern day men seek the Lord in order that their will be done, but true prayer is to seek the Lord for His will to be done.

A heart is never finally and completely subjected until glory. A heart that thinks it is subjected will, when it sees that it is lower than it was or perhaps lower than others, begin to rise in pride. This is part of the spiritual battle as well. It is not just that the heart must be humbled and subjected in order to pray at first, but the battle goes on for the heart to remain subjected. Pride will rise in the heart at any point and the battle must go on from there. The evil one wants pride to rise and so he may whisper in the ear of the soul that is praying about how good the prayers are and to whisper in such a way that the soul will look to its own humility and admire itself. But a true humility and a true subjection is to bow before the living God in emptiness of self seeking grace to be humble and subjected and yet seeking it to stay that way and even go deeper into them.

What goes on in the subjected heart? What is the thinking process? For the soul to be in subjection to Christ the mind or thinking process must be in subjection to Him too. The mind not only must be subjected to Christ in terms of not thinking bad things, but it must think on Christ and look to Christ for how to think and what to think in order to pray. The mind can look to itself in order to pray, but what is that but looking to the flesh? The mind must bow in humble subjection and be turned from the things of self and the world in terms of motive, intent, and love in order that it may be able to pray for His glory, kingdom, and will.

What is the “feeling” process? The fleshly nature will rise up in its self-love and self-focus and strive to pray for self or at least pray for spiritual things with self as the focus. Self can “pray” for others and have it to be nothing more than self-interest. But the feelings will be turned and easily deceived. The feelings can drive the soul (at which point they are passions) and so the feelings of self are the focus. But the soul must be driven by truth and the feelings of the soul must follow the truth (which would then be the affections). The battle can only be won in this by Christ as He alone can tame the unruly heart. The whole soul must be in subjection to Christ in order to pray in truth and love. Wild feelings must be tamed as they can drive the soul rather than love for Christ. The mind must be in subjection or they will flit around here and there and not be bowed in living obedience to Christ. Prayer, then, becomes a battle and is not this easy thing of throwing out religious words. Prayer is a battle of the soul and for the reign and rule over the soul. Anyone who tries to truly pray will know very quickly that it is a real battle.

2 Chronicles 7:14 and My people who are called by My name  humble [subject] themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin and will heal their land.

What goes on in terms of prayer in a heart that is not subjected? A heart that is not subjected to God is not a heart that has not been enlightened by the Spirit for prayer, will not have the glory of God as what is truly sought, and will certainly not seek the face of God for the sake of God. A non-subjected heart, even if it is a believer that has a heart that is wandering at the moment, is not one that is going to truly pray.

It is so hard for the modern world to accept the reality of the situation, but Jesus said with great clarity and even emphasis that apart from Him we can do nothing. In the context, we can do nothing spiritual or truly good. As the branches can do absolutely nothing in the sense of bearing fruit apart from the vine, so the believer can do absolutely nothing spiritual apart from receiving it from Christ. True prayer does not occur when the word “Jesus” or the words “in His name” fall from the lips, but the heart must really intend that. The heart that is not subjected to Christ is not a heart that can pray from the heart in the name of Christ in reality.

Believers have noted for centuries that when their hearts are cold they seem to be saying words into the air. Others have noted how dry prayer is at times and still others have noted the utter impossibility of praying in the flesh even when we have high affections. Perhaps we need to note the teaching from II Chronicles 7:14 once again and take it to heart that the humbled (subjected) heart is necessary for true prayer. Perhaps there is so much prayer going on in the flesh that people have forgotten (at best) or have never known that their hearts have to be humbled (in subjection) to Christ in order to pray.

One of the great evils in our day is the fleeing from the Lordship of Jesus Christ. At the very least we should note how the refusal to bow to Christ will have a major influence on prayer. If bowing to Christ as Lord with a subjected heart is necessary for prayer, then perhaps this is one reason why the prayer meetings are sparsely attended in the very few places they even have them. Perhaps this is the reason that people prefer to pray from lists rather than seek the Lord for a broken and subjected heart in order to pray for grace to know how and what to pray.

But, someone may say, it is not possible to subject my heart to Christ. That is absolutely correct. The teaching of free-will (at least logically) is the death of true prayer. A heart to pray must come by grace because a heart cannot truly humble itself. Christ alone can teach a heart true humility and, to speak with more precision, it is the life of the humble Lord and Savior in our hearts that is the life of true humility. The truth and glory of humility cannot be found in any location except in Christ and in those whom Christ dwells in. Those who are cold in prayer, therefore, are not in fellowship with Christ.

The sovereignty of God reaches the Christian life at each and every point. No one can be in true prayer without a subjected heart and no one has a subjected heart apart from the hand of God in subduing that heart at each point of the life of each person. This comes to a head when a great trial comes upon the human soul and one that the human flesh screams in wanting the trial to go away. But the heart of the believer must cry out to God for relief from its own wicked heart in desiring things that God has not decreed for the good of that soul. The heart of the believer must seek the Lord for grace in order for his own heart to be subjected to Christ since it is not in the power of human flesh to do a spiritual act of such power. No, we are to walk by grace and that means it takes grace at each moment to defeat the flesh. If we push down the flesh (as we think) with the power of self, all that means is that we have used one act of the flesh and self to push down another aspect of it. This cannot lead to true prayer.

The heart that is not subjected to Christ is a heart that is fleshly and a fleshly heart cannot pray in the Spirit. No matter how religious a person may be, if the heart is not truly subjected to Christ that heart cannot pray in truth and love in the Spirit. Prayer is so far beyond uttering religious words about things and asking God to do our own wills that it almost seems absurd to say that, but it appears to be the most common way to deceive ourselves into thinking that we are praying. The heart that is not in subjection to Christ is a heart that loves itself rather than Christ, prays for itself rather than Christ, and as such the prayer of a heart like that is really a vile act of idolatry. But never mind, so many say, at least they are sincere. Yes, but God is also sincere in hating the prayers of the wicked and an idolatrous prayer is wicked. We must seek subjected hearts if we truly desire to truly pray.