Standing on the Pillars of Prayer and Love
We read in Mark 11:25“And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins.” Just as Jesus gave us the second greatest commandment, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” there is a second relationship that is crucial to having our prayers answered. How is love for God and love for others connected?
In the Lord’s Prayer we learned that if we expect to be forgiven we must also forgive others. This takes that one step further. Forgiving someone is one thing, but actually loving them is another thing entirely. But remember Jesus’ teaching about hate is that if we hate another person and speak badly about them, it is no better than actually murdering them.
Usually when we pray we get in a certain frame of mind to come before God. This may be the only time of day when we think about God. However, even when we don’t think about God, He thinks about us and sees us at all times. Our lives need to be a reflection of God’s love. Does your life match your prayers?
Love sums up everything about relationships. If we are always loving, we will have no problem being forgiven. Our relationship with God will not suffer because our relationships with people will always be in love.
The Church stands on two pillars, Prayer and Love. Without one or the other, the church will not stand. We cannot love the way God loves unless we ask God to enable us to do so. On the other side, our prayers may go unanswered if we harbor resentment towards others and are unloving.
As we mature as Christians our love should naturally grow because we better understand God’s love for us. And as our love for God grows, so does our relationship with Him and consequently our prayer life.
The deeper our love grows, the greater our prayer life should become. The deeper our prayer life becomes, the greater our love should grow.
Pastor Ralph