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Different personalities worship in different ways

Remember them, O my God. Nehemiah 13:29

In the last article we considered the prayers of righteous people in the Old Testament. It seems that God made different people with different personalities to glorify Him in different ways. God has gifted us in various ways so that we can minister in the body of Christ according to need. We can pray in different ways for different results as the spirit directs us rather than follow the dictates of other men.

In the New Testament we find basically the same idea; different people live and act in different ways. Paul and Barnabas are two very good examples. We could also mention Peter and John Mark. When I read about the apostle Paul, he seems very much like Nehemiah, ready to give 125 percent to God’s work. He also prays in much the same manner. In reference to Alexander the coppersmith he makes this request, “May the Lord repay him according to his works,” I Timothy 4:14.

In John 17:9 Jesus prays, “I do not pray for the world but for those You have given Me, for they are Yours.” In John 17:25 Jesus prays, “Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory which You have given Me; for You loved Me before the foundation of the world.”

A lot of people like to refer to the Lord’s Prayer as an example; it was given to the disciples to teach many different things. I believe Jesus is using the prayer to show His disciples their position before the Great, Eternal, Sovereign Ruler of the universe. When you read the prayer, it’s basically all about Him, and that’s the way it should be. When men try to exalt themselves before God, they end up with an unscriptural type of religion.

The problem I have here is not with the prayer, but what people do with it. People will often misquote it and give it the wrong meaning. When Jesus said we must forgive others if we want to be forgiven, He was not talking about a “forgive and forget” (unable to recall) situation. God’s word tells us, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” For a wrong to be corrected, there should first be confession and a repenting of the wrong. Luke 17:3 says, “If your brother sins against you, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him. And if he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times in a day returns to you, saying, I repent, you shall forgive him.” This is often overlooked in the human relationship of man to man, Christian to Christian or one person to another.

The second thing we need to remember is that forgiveness does not imply that there are no consequences or that the offense is totally forgotten (out of recall). God forgave David of his sin with Bathsheba and the murder of Uriah. But the “consequences” of those sins plagued David the rest of his life. God tells us in His word that everyone will be held accountable for the deeds done in the flesh. We must be careful of interpreting things the way we want to, or making them suit our own desires.

In closing, the freedom to pray in different ways is given in the Old Testament as well as the New Testament. We must learn our proper place before Him and present our needs and request in a meek humble spirit of submission.

Comments or questions, contact me at: thoughtsonword@gmail.com.

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Lyndon Stimeling, of Richfield, has been writing about faith and family for many years. He has self-published two books, “Common Thoughts on The Word” in 2016 and “Eye of a Needle” in 2017. He has also had articles published in The Coming Home Journal and local newspapers and has written a children’s book.

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