A voice says, ‘Cry out.’ And I said, ‘What shall I cry?’ ‘All people are like grass, and all their faithfulness is like the flowers of the field. The grass withers and the flowers fall, because the breath of the Lord blows on them. Surely the people are grass. The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God endures for ever.’
Isaiah 40:6-8 NIVUK
PRAY IT
Praying Scripture has been something God's people have done for generations. Praying Scripture is like cashing a cheque that is backed by the nature of God. It draws on what we know of Him. We are asking Him to do what He wants to do anyway. However, as we pray Scripture we are reminded of who He is and what He does.
We see it for the first time when Abraham pleads with God not to destroy Soddom and Gomorrah (Genesis 18:20-32).
Moses appeals on the same basis when the Israelites are intimidated and refuse to enter the Promised Land (Numbers 14:14-19).
The prophet Habakkuk does it as he wrestles in his mind with the coming of the Babylonians to punish Judah.
Jesus also does it, while heading to the Garden of Gethsemane and His betrayal and arrest (John 17).
There are many wonderful prayers and blessings in the Bible, not least the Mosaic Blessing:
‘ “ ‘The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you; the Lord turn his face towards you and give you peace.’ ”
Numbers 6:24-26 NIVUK
There's the tremendous, and often overlooked, prayer in Psalm 139:
Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
Psalms 139:23-24 NIVUK
And, of course, there is the Lord's Prayer (Matthew 6:9-13; Luke 11:2-4). Not to mention the doxologies in many of Paul's letters.
On top of that the very many and various promises God has made throughout Scripture, which are way too many to mention.
So how do we pray them?
There is no magic formula. And they certainly should not be seen as a way to strong-arm God into demanding things for our own pleasure. James is clear that this is not appropriate at all:
What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.
James 4:1-3 NIVUK
Never believe the dangerous lies of those who tell you to stand on the promised of God because this will make you rich and successful and give you all your heart's desire. That is a fake Gospel. It is absolutely wrong. People who tell blatant lies like this are doing so only so that they gain out of it.
But we also shouldn't see prayer as us being in a courtroom with God and these promises being 'Exhibit A'. That is nonsense too. Even a casual reading of the Lord's Prayer will show that God is called 'Our Father'. What kind of Father would make their children argue and justify their needs?
No, praying Scripture is all about growing our faith, reminding us of who God is and what He does. The people who primarily benefit from this are us, not God. We are, in essence, preaching to our own souls, lifting our hearts out of the doldrums, encouraging ourselves.
And yes, there are times when things happen that we just don't understand. Many times I've prayed to God, 'I know you the Bible says in Romans 8:28 that you are working all things to my good, but right now I don't see it.' But do you know something? When I've looked back later, I have.
During Lockdown, I decided to strengthen my faith as I knew it would help me get through the situation we were all facing. One of the things I decided to do was pray through the Lord's Prayer every day - not just out of routine, but carefully and thoughtfully. That prayer, often prayed by rote during services or school assemblies in the past, has been a tremendous corrective for me. I've had to ask if I'm seeking God's will or my own; if I'm truly thankful for the provision of our daily bread; if I'm willing for God to forgive me to the same level that I'm willing to forgive others; if I really want God to deliver me from temptation. That simple prayer has been such a challenge and an encouragement.
Praying Scripture, allied with memorisation and meditation, can be an amazing growth experience, provided it's meaningful. As soon as it becomes nothing more than habit, it needs to be changed.
But there is nothing more faith-building than taking God at His Word and seeing Him fulfil it.
The Bible we have in our hands is infinitely precious. Men and women have literally shed their blood and died so that we can have it in our own language - and not just in non-Christian countries. William Tyndale was jailed and executed in 1536 for his translation of the Bible from Hebrew and Greek into common English. His dying prayer was that the eyes of the King of England would be opened. Just one year later, King James the Sixth of Scotland and the First of England approved the first legal translation of the Bible in English, and most of it is Tyndale's work.
Across the world, people are still bleeding and dying for the Bible. There are many countries where simple possession of a Bible will cause you to be jailed, or even killed. It's seen as subversive and dangerous.
The amount of work it takes to translate the Bible is enormous. It can take between twelve and twenty-five years, despite all the modern technology we have. Often Bible translators have little to work with and have to establish an alphabet and grammar before they begin.
Yet we can walk freely into a Christian bookshop, or look on a Christian website, and be thoroughly distracted from the Bible section by a shiny new novel or a self-help book or some nonsense about how God wants you to be rich.
If we're really honest, we have too many resources. Even though devotional books are the equivalent of a snack to the Bible's seven course feast, we'd rather have the snack. It's easier for us to read a book about the Bible than read the Bible itself. The Bible takes work. It takes thought. It takes effort. And we just don't want to put the effort in.
This must change. If we really want to grow as Christians, we need to not just read about the Bible, we must read the Bible itself. We can't say anymore that the language is difficult to understand. Not when we have a multitude of translations in English. We can't say we don't know how. Not when we are awash with good quality resources, both online and in bookstores.
It's time to stop making excuses. It's time to read, study, ponder, pray and learn from the Word of God.
So how will you read yours?
Questions
'Every Christian who wants to grow and become like Jesus must read and study the Bible for themselves'. Do you believe this is true?
Have you tried any of the five ways to get to know the Bible better? What happened?
How precious is the Bible to you?
Many churches still use the apostles creed and nicene creed as part of their worship. Many still use the Lord’s Prayer. Unfortunately our schools have largely turned away from teaching scripture in RE or in assemblies. Therefore a lot of people have no idea how to pray.