To Whom Should We Pray?

   To whom should we pray?

   Does it make any difference whether we pray to the Father or to the Son, or to the Holy Spirit?

   This question is asked over and over. If it does make a difference, we should find out, for God has good reasons for everything that concerns us. If it doesn't make a difference, we should also find out. The fine sensitive relationship which exists between God's Spirit and our spirit needs all the relaxed quietness and receptivity possible. Uninformed ignorance, sluggish unconcern or deadening conformity are all number one enemies which can be sent scampering down their own dark corridors of unbelief.

   Is your prayer life alive? Are your prayer times too few and too far between? Have you been bogging down and slowing up? And are you looking back with regret and longing at earlier years when prayer had more meaning to you?  I confess this happens periodically with me.

   Now and then we should face our need for fresh beginnings. If you have been praying to the Father, and have never addressed the Son in prayer, why not get on speaking terms with Him, too? If you have never addressed the Holy Spirit in prayer, you have a great Counselor who is waiting for you to get acquainted with Him. He knows all about you.

   Does it make any difference to whom you pray?

   Whose presence are you aware of when you pray? Is your heart at all affected by the name or names by which

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you address God when you pray? Or are you more concerned about the content of your prayer? Or perhaps your concern may be just to get it over with, so you can relax again.

   I want to tell you about a college girl who had been completely unaware of the name she was using when she prayed, and of the amazing difference it made in her relationship to God when she did become aware.

   Marion was a college sophomore when I first met her, and was one of a small group of girls who met to plan and pray with me about how best to present Jesus Christ to their friends on campus. Each noon we met for a short time of prayer. We were learning to pray conversationally. After I'd heard her pray once, I was concerned. After the second time I'd heard her, I prayed, "Lord, if you want me to speak with Marion and give her a few pointers, put it into her heart to come and see me." (I believe in definite, time-limit, faith-sized requests for some things, and will develop this subject in a later chapter.)

   That very night there was a knock at my door. It was Marion. I was glad to see her and told her so. I even told her that I'd asked the Lord to send her.

   "You did?" she asked. "Why?"

   "Because I see a great God-potential in you and I think a little talk might help bring it out. You won't mind, will you, Marion, if I talk with you about something I've noticed?"

   She told me to go right ahead.

   "Marion, to whom do you pray?"

   She hesitated a moment, "I guess I pray to the Lord Jesus."

   "Do you?" I waited a moment to let her think. "What do you call Him?"

   "Uh — uh — Dear Lord Jesus," she said uncertainly.

   "Well, tell me, Marion, do you do this both in your own private prayers and when you pray with others?"

   "Why, uh — yes, I think I do," Marion looked a little puzzled. "Ros, why are you asking me this? Go ahead and tell me."

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   So I told her. I had taken the liberty of timing her prayer the second time I'd heard her. And I had a reason. The prayer lasted one minute, and in that time she had used the name "God" thirty-three times! She had used His Name as a punctuation mark, and not as though she were speaking to a real, living Person.

   I gave her an example of the way she prayed, so she would understand: "O God, we thank You, God, that we can come into Your Presence, God. God, we need You today, God. God, will You help us, O God, to live for You today, God."

   She was embarrassed and surprised, but fortunately very open. We had a comfortable talk on the subject, and then she asked, "Could we pray again now?" We did, and this time, by her own choice, she started, "Dear Lord Jesus . . ." instead of her habitual, "Dear God . . . ." She prayed slowly, thoughtfully, with many pauses, and used His Name meaningfully. She was speaking to Someone, He was there!

   Suddenly she looked up, with tears, "Oh, Ros, I feel as if I've become a Christian all over again! I didn't know what I was doing before. I guess I was praying to be praying, if there is such a thing. I didn't really know to whom I was praying. Now I know. It's Jesus Christ!"

   In my own efforts to learn the true meaning of prayer, and to recognize His presence, I personally have found it more helpful to address most of my prayers to the Lord Jesus. And yet there are times when I find myself praying to the Father, or to the Holy Spirit. I searched the New Testament with this one thought in mind: to find when and why each member of the Trinity was addressed. I had a page in my notebook for each, and from this study I gained confidence and knowledge.

   I am not trying to give you a pat theological answer. I am only trying to give you the simple answers I found for myself in regard to whom I may address my prayer. But out of this study I have also found a simplicity concerning

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the whole Christian faith. I discovered that when this mystifying subject of the Trinity is brought up and talked about and explained (inasmuch as we are able), it begins of its own accord to form the basis of our belief in the Person of Jesus Christ.

   There is one God. Not three. He is three Persons but one in essence and substance. The dictionary definition of essence is this: That in being which underlies all outward manifestations and is permanent and unchangeable. In other words, the very substance of.

   Why has God shown Himself to us in three Persons? Where did this idea originally come from?

   Jesus Christ Himself taught us (mainly in the Gospel of John) that He and the Father are one. Jesus Christ is the Father defined. No one called God "Father" before Jesus came. The complete fifth chapter of John is a discourse on the equality of the Father and the Son. No one knew what God was really like until in the Person of Jesus of Nazareth, He came to visit this earth and show Himself as He really is.

   Where does the Holy Spirit come into the picture? Jesus said (and I paraphrase from John 14:16-20): I am going away to my Father, but I will send the Comforter, the Spirit of truth to be with you forever. I will not leave you helpless orphans, I will come to you. In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.

   Paul tells us in II Corinthians 3:17 that the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of the Lord Jesus in us.

   If you seem to be having trouble with understanding that three persons can be of one essence, here is an illustration which has helped me. The compound H₂O is found in three forms, gas, liquid and solid (air, water, ice) but they are all composed of the same basic elements — two atoms of hydrogen and one of oxygen. Each has a significance and use of its own, but all are composed of exactly the same ele-

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ments. There is no contradiction among them, just as there is no contradiction among the members of the Godhead.

   From an old Scotch Presbyterian book I copied a diagram of the Trinity which I have found most helpful. See page 112. Notice that the name GOD is all inclusive and when you start from the center of the circle, the fact that they are all one becomes evident: God is the Father, God is the Son, God is the Spirit. But go around the outer edge of the circle, and you find the Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Spirit, the Spirit is not the Father. Their one essence is shown at the center, and their three personalities are shown at the circumference.

   Why has God shown Himself to us in three Persons?

   God is the great Eternal Being, and we are so limited in all our spiritual concepts that He has given us three different glimpses of Himself, through three different Personalities, but the three are One.

   I believe that God must have anticipated this human confusion of ours about Himself. This is surely one of the reasons He visited this earth in the Person of Jesus Christ. As we study Christ's life, death and resurrection, we find ourselves being overcome by the certain knowledge of God's true character.

   It is important for us to be able to think of our God as a Person, not an idea, or a principle or even a spiritual concept. It must follow that whatever name we use for Him, that name must have some real meaning for us. There are literally hundreds of names for God in both the Old and New Testament.

   How many names do you have for the person most beloved on earth to you? Does one mean any more than another? The reason is usually a significant one.

   We neither offend Him nor pacify Him by the name we choose to use when we speak to Him. His love is unchanging. It is not at all dependent on us or the phrase we happen to use.

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   I know Jesus taught us to "Pray to your Father who is in secret." When He was on earth, He prayed to His Father. He taught us to say, "Our Father, which art in heaven." Most of the time He was concealing His own personal glory and identity, both of which have now been revealed. During His earthly days He voluntarily became dependent upon His Father, though from eternity they have been equal.

   Jesus invited us to pray in His Name. He assured us that He alone has power to give us eternal life. He taught that all the Father is and has are His. "The Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son: That all men should honour the Son, even as they honour the Father. He that honoureth not the Son honoureth not the Father which hath sent him" (John 5:22, 23).

   Jesus Christ was worshiped by those who knew who He was, both during His earthly life and after His resurrection. One of the central themes of the Book of Revelation is that the Lamb will be the object of our worship through all eternity.

   For an Old Testament look at the names of the coming God-Man, there is Isaiah 9:6: "For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace."

   Paul tells us that every knee in heaven and on earth and under the earth will bow at the Name of Jesus.

   Is Jesus Christ God? Your answer to this question will determine your attitude toward Him. Is the deity of the Son of God actual? Is it Scriptural? A positive answer to these questions has meant the beginning of a personal relationship with Jesus Christ to many inquiring hearts.

   Before I came to know Stella Newbill of Seattle (she is now my good friend) she had been seeking God for some time. It was easy to come to the point. "Stella, I hear you have been reading Unity. Are you receiving any help?"

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   "Who told you, Ros? I'd be interested to know," said Stella.

   So I told her and she smiled. "Yes, I have been reading Unity, because I need to have some prayers answered. But I still have a big question. Is Jesus Christ God?"

   From there we began a conversation neither of us will ever forget. An hour or so later, as we knelt together in prayer, Stella quietly in her own words, and for the first time in her life, acknowledged Jesus Christ as her Lord and her God. A personal relationship began for her that day because, knowing who God really is, she could put her trust in Him.

   For the past two years she has been an amazingly creative and fruitful witness to Jesus Christ in her community. One of the first persons to be reached for Christ through Stella was her husband, Art. Now both of them are strong and peaceful in the midst of a physical illness which I have seen defeat persons who have been Christians for most of their lives. They are both sure of God's ultimate intentions toward them because they know what Jesus Christ is like, and they know that He and the Father are one.

   Our God is infinite, but we are so earthbound that He has done everything possible to help us grasp and understand something of His eternal dimensions. He has given us three views of Himself, and yet there is more. Like the vast ocean stretching away, there is so much more.

   I am forever convinced that anyone who comes to the place of realizing that God and Jesus Christ are one and the same, has reached the potential of a new plateau in prayer. Somehow it is easy to speak to Jesus Christ. After all, we know that He knows what it feels like to be us.

Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be

made like unto his brethren . . . (Hebrews 2:17).

Chapter Five  ||  Table of Contents