What’s In Your Heart? (Part 1)

What do you do when you pray for someone who is in any kind of need? Actually, the better question would be, “What are you thinking as you pray for that person?” Do you have the Father’s viewpoint of that person when you pray?

John 3:17 (AMP) “For God did not send the Son into the world in order to judge (to reject, to condemn, to pass sentence on) the world, but that the world might find salvation and be made safe and sound through Him.”

Lately, the Holy Spirit has been convicting me of some very wrong heart attitudes as I pray for people – even for those I dearly love. If I’m praying for their healing to manifest, at the same time I’m thinking about the things they’ve done or not done that have gotten them into this condition. Or if I’m praying for a financial need, I’m thinking about purchases they made that I didn’t think they should have made in the first place, which is probably why they are in the trouble they are in right now. What am I doing? I’m standing in the place of judge and jury, having found them guilty and passing sentence, all the while I’m supposedly praying for their good. How ugly this is to God! And how ugly this is to face in myself!

You know, even if they really have been doing the wrong things, according to the passage above, Jesus isn’t condemning them at all. He’s not judging them. He already paid the price for every one of their sins and imperfections – wrong decisions that have kept them (me) from walking in all His fullness.

Romans 8:34 (AMP) “Who is there to condemn [us]? Will Christ Jesus (the Messiah), Who died, or rather Who was raised from the dead, Who is at the right hand of God actually pleading as He intercedes for us?”

Jesus is interceding for us, not against us! Our place is to pray from the Lord’s perspective, to see people the way He sees them. He sees them (and me) as one of His children, bought with the blood of Jesus, fully paid for and chosen by Him, because He loves us all so much. That’s what He wants us to remember as we pray. So, what do we do when we are convicted of those wrong attitudes even as we pray? We repent right in the middle of it, receive the forgiveness He has already provided, and pray on – but from His heart. And we can be assured that He will hear our prayer and move on behalf of those we pray for, just as He does for us. Praise the name of the Lord!

© Copyright 2004 Kay V. Stocking