:: God's Greatest Gift ::
- an exerpt from "When God Doesn't Answer Your Prayer" by Jerry Sittser
Unfortunately, God's greatest answer to prayer is something far different from what we could imagine. It is not what God does for us that demonstrates God's greatest answer to prayer; it is what God does in us. God wants to change us to His liking, not to change the world to our liking. As author Eugene Peterson writes, "Prayers are not tools for doing or getting, but for being and becoming."
Oswald Chambers believed that prayer changes us so that we can then help change the world. It must begin with us.
To say that "prayer changes things" is not as close to the truth as saying, "Prayer changes me and then I change things." God has established things so that in prayer, on the basis of redemption, changes the way a person looks at things. Prayer is not a matter of changing things externally, but one of working miracles in a person's inner nature.
That is where God will begin - transforming our "inner nature." We can be sure of it because of who God is and what He has promised to do. Jesus used the example of an earthly parent to make the point. Most earthly parents, Jesus explained, are kind to their children. If children ask for something that seems reasonable, parents will give it because that is what good parents do. So if a son asks for a second helping of mashed potatoes, a mother is not going to give him moldy bread. If a daughter asks for a new pair of sweatpants, a father is not going to give her a gunny sack. It is of the very nature of parents to meet the needs of children, to respond favourably to their requests, to do what is best for them. That is what parents are supposed to do.
Then Jesus delivered the punch line. "If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who asked Him." God's greatest answer to prayer, His most precious gift, is not what we would naturally think. It is not things at all; it is Himself, dwelling in our hearts.
Jesus' disciples must have been surprised by this punch line, perhaps even disappointed. I know I would have been. Putting myself in their place, I would have wanted something else. Instead of the "Holy Spirit," I would have hoped for "world peace" or "salvation for the lost" or "success in ministry" or "deliverance from evil" or "endless prosperity." Yet God's greatest gift, according to Jesus, is none other than the gift of the Holy Spirit, who takes up residence inside us, helping us to become more and more like the person God wants us to be, regardless of our circumstances.
God promises us Himself. He pledges to send us the Holy Spirit to become present and active in our lives. John's gospel is relentlessly clear on this point. On the day before Jesus' trial and death, He spent one last evening with His disciples. They were filled with a sense of foreboding because they knew something was about to happen, though they weren't sure what it was. They wanted Jesus to remain with them, and they wanted things to remain as they were.
Jesus sensed their concern and addressed it. "But very truly I tell you, it is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate [Holy Spirit] will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you." It would be the Spirit's job, Jesus said to His disciples, to empower them for ministry, to convict the world of sin, to remind them of Jesus' teachings, and to give them peace in the midst of tumult.
The Holy Spirit would not make life easy for them. But Jesus was convinced that the presence of the Spirit would serve their best interest because God as a Spirit would be working inside them, enabling them to follow Him. The apostle Paul argued similarly when he told believers in Ephesus to keep on being "filled with the Holy Spirit" because the Spirit would transform them into extraordinary people, characterized by joy, peace, and love.
1:44 PM |blessed. 
quoteworthy
I believe in God for the same reason I believe in the rising of the sun.
Not only do I see it in the world around me, but by it I see all things.
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