Silas
Beloved of All
Your prayer reflects a heart that longs for what God Himself longs to give, an unquenchable thirst for truth and righteousness. Jesus said blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled. That hunger is not natural to us. God plants it in the human heart, and only He can satisfy it. As the psalmist said, as the deer pants for water, so the soul thirsts for the living God. People try to satisfy that thirst in many other ways and find they thirst again, but when the thirst is rightly understood as a thirst for God, and is brought to Him, He fills it.
You are right to grieve over dishonesty and disregard for human life, and to bring before the Lord those who are caught in lies and who use knowledge or position for what is evil in His sight. Education, even in the law, does not make a person righteous. Scripture speaks of a zeal for God that is not according to knowledge, where people are ignorant of God's righteousness and try to establish their own by works, as if good deeds could outweigh bad. True righteousness is not earned that way. It is given by God and credited to us through faith in Jesus Christ. He alone is the way, the truth and the life, and no one comes to the Father except through Him. Mercy and truth meet together only in Him. It would not be just to simply excuse the guilty, yet God is merciful. That meeting place is the cross, where Christ became a curse for us, as it is written cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree, so that justice would be satisfied and mercy could be extended, so that righteousness and peace could kiss.
That is why your prayer from Psalm 51 is so fitting. God does not delight in outward sacrifice alone. The sacrifice He will not despise is a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart. When we pray for others, we are asking God to do what only He can do, to search the heart and show what is there, for He looks not on outward appearance as people do, but on the heart. We can ask Him to teach them His ways, to lead them in His truth, to show them their sin so that they will not only recognize it but hate it and turn from it. That is the work of the Holy Spirit, who also intercedes for us when we pray.
You have prayed without boasting and without looking down on others, acknowledging that all have fallen short of the glory of God. That is the right posture. We do not have righteousness of our own to offer. We receive the righteousness of Christ by faith, and from that place we can love others, even those who oppose what is right, and long for them to be saved. The world in a real sense already belongs to Jesus, but He has not yet come to claim it fully, and creation groans as we groan, longing for redemption. Until then our calling is to care for those in trouble as for a brother, to speak the truth in love, and to keep praying that God will give an undivided heart that seeks Him wholly.
We join you in asking the Father in Jesus name to save those you have named, to cover His own with His peace and understanding, to make them pure in heart that they may see God, to stir in all involved a true thirst for what is right and true that only He can satisfy, and to do His will. We ask that He would continue to form in you that same hunger, and that you would know the promise that those who hunger for His righteousness will be filled.
You are right to grieve over dishonesty and disregard for human life, and to bring before the Lord those who are caught in lies and who use knowledge or position for what is evil in His sight. Education, even in the law, does not make a person righteous. Scripture speaks of a zeal for God that is not according to knowledge, where people are ignorant of God's righteousness and try to establish their own by works, as if good deeds could outweigh bad. True righteousness is not earned that way. It is given by God and credited to us through faith in Jesus Christ. He alone is the way, the truth and the life, and no one comes to the Father except through Him. Mercy and truth meet together only in Him. It would not be just to simply excuse the guilty, yet God is merciful. That meeting place is the cross, where Christ became a curse for us, as it is written cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree, so that justice would be satisfied and mercy could be extended, so that righteousness and peace could kiss.
That is why your prayer from Psalm 51 is so fitting. God does not delight in outward sacrifice alone. The sacrifice He will not despise is a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart. When we pray for others, we are asking God to do what only He can do, to search the heart and show what is there, for He looks not on outward appearance as people do, but on the heart. We can ask Him to teach them His ways, to lead them in His truth, to show them their sin so that they will not only recognize it but hate it and turn from it. That is the work of the Holy Spirit, who also intercedes for us when we pray.
You have prayed without boasting and without looking down on others, acknowledging that all have fallen short of the glory of God. That is the right posture. We do not have righteousness of our own to offer. We receive the righteousness of Christ by faith, and from that place we can love others, even those who oppose what is right, and long for them to be saved. The world in a real sense already belongs to Jesus, but He has not yet come to claim it fully, and creation groans as we groan, longing for redemption. Until then our calling is to care for those in trouble as for a brother, to speak the truth in love, and to keep praying that God will give an undivided heart that seeks Him wholly.
We join you in asking the Father in Jesus name to save those you have named, to cover His own with His peace and understanding, to make them pure in heart that they may see God, to stir in all involved a true thirst for what is right and true that only He can satisfy, and to do His will. We ask that He would continue to form in you that same hunger, and that you would know the promise that those who hunger for His righteousness will be filled.
