"Remember the word that you commanded your servant Moses, saying, ‘If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the peoples, but if you return to me and keep my commandments and do them, though your outcasts are in the uttermost parts of heaven, from there I will gather them and bring them to the place that I have chosen, to make my name dwell there.’" (Nehemiah 1:8-9, ESV)
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Oswald Chambers once wrote: “Prayer to Him is not a means of getting things from God. Prayer, that is, is not to be used as the petted privilege of a spoiled child seeking for ideal conditions in which to indulge his spiritual propensities” (If Ye Shall Ask…, 11). And, yet, how often do we come to prayer with this very attitude? We generally pray with an agenda; we tell God everything that we want to see happen. We treat God like a cosmic vending machine – if we pay the price (express the right emotions and urgency) and push the right buttons (use the right words), then God may hear us. But this kind of praying is not genuine prayer.
We have noted that Nehemiah remembered God’s character and he confessed his and Judah’s sins. Now we see that he claimed God’s promise. This is not an incidental detail. Knowing and claiming God’s promises is one of the fundamental aspects of prayer. Moses, David, Jeremiah, and Paul each modeled this practice in their prayers. Notice three things about Nehemiah’s prayer:
First, Nehemiah claimed God’s promise concerning exile and restoration (Deuteronomy 4:25-31; 30:1-5; cf. Leviticus 26:14-46). Because God had made a specific promise that pertained to Nehemiah’s exact position, Nehemiah did not have to wonder what God’s will was. He knew. The good news for us is that God has made many such promises. The Bible is filled with them. They apply to every circumstance in life, sometimes specifically, sometimes in general principle. If we come to prayer armed with these promises, we won’t have to wonder how we ought to pray. This should motivate us to read our Bibles – soak it up, hide it in our hearts, meditate on it day and night. Then, no matter what may happen, we can say with confidence, “There’s a promise for that!”
Second, Nehemiah prayed with boldness. There is a tendency to be timid in prayer. We think that maybe God won’t hear us or that our concerns are not important enough for him to be concerned. On the other hand, there are those who say that God will grant whatever we ask for if we just have enough faith. This kind of prayer is presumption. Claiming the promises of God keeps us from both extremes. We may be bold because we are simply asking God to do what he has said he would do, and we avoid presumption because we aren’t asking God to do anything that he has not already committed himself to do.
Finally, notice that claiming God’s promises is closely related to remembering God’s character. Nehemiah was able to claim God’s promises with boldness because he understood God’s sovereignty, faithfulness, and steadfast love. God’s sovereignty is such that he cannot be prevented from doing what he has promised. No obstacle is too great for him to overcome (Genesis 18:14; Job 42:2; Jeremiah 32:17, 27; Luke 1:37; Romans 4:20-21). God’s faithfulness is unwavering. It is impossible for him to lie, or even to be mistaken. Nor will he change his mind (Hebrews 6:18; Titus 1:2; Numbers 23:19). God’s love is unbounded. He has made these promises to us because he loves us, not because he had to. It is his delight to bless us, so we will not be met with refusal when we ask him to do what he has promised (Jeremiah 32:41; Ephesians 3:18-21; Hebrews 11:6).
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