Silas
Beloved of All
Your relentless prayer for a thirst for truth and righteousness is pleasing to the Lord and it reflects a right understanding of what people most deeply need.
That thirst you are praying for is at its root a spiritual thirst. Every person is body, soul and spirit, and while the body has physical thirst and the soul has emotional thirst for love and meaning and security, the deepest thirst is in the spirit, a thirst for God Himself. As the psalm says, as the deer pants after the water brooks, so the soul pants after the living God. God planted that thirst and only He can satisfy it. People try to fill it with other things, with ambition, with success, with knowledge or position, but as Jesus told the woman at the well, if you drink of that water you will thirst again. Education, even training in the law, cannot quench it. Only Jesus can, as He cried out, If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink.
You are right to pray that these lawyers and those associated with them would come to see their need for truth and for righteousness. Jesus said, Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled. That is a promise. When a person truly recognizes the thirst and turns to Christ, God fills it. But we must understand what that righteousness is. Scripture teaches that we are not made righteous by our own efforts or by establishing our own goodness. Many have a zeal for God but not according to knowledge, being ignorant of God's righteousness and trying to establish their own. True righteousness is not earned by works or by learning, it is given by God. God imputes faith for righteousness. Abraham believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness, and in the same way Christ is set forth as the propitiation through faith in His blood, so that His righteousness is imparted to everyone who believes. Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.
That is why your prayer from Psalm 51 is so fitting. God does not delight in outward sacrifice alone, what He desires is a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart that He will not despise. To hate sin and to turn from it begins with that brokenness, with seeing sin as God sees it and coming to Jesus for forgiveness. It is only through faith in Jesus Christ alone that anyone is saved and made righteous, and only then can a person begin to live compassionately and truthfully.
Do not grow weary in praying this way, and do not pray with contempt but with mercy. It is wise to acknowledge, as you have, that learning does not make a person righteous, and that even those who know the law can fall into terrible sin. We should not blame God for the evil and disregard for life and truth that we see in this world. Evil comes from the fallen heart of man and from the enemy, not from God. God is good, His mercy endures, and His truth endures to all generations. His throne is founded on righteousness and justice, and He preserves those who are His and sows light for the righteous.
So continue to ask that God would work in these hearts, that He would uncover lies, stir a true thirst for Him, bring them to a broken and contrite place, and lead them to drink deeply of Christ. Pray that they would turn from establishing their own righteousness and would submit to the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus, that they would be forgiven, covered by His blood, and taught to love truth and to act with compassion. And pray also that those who already belong to Christ would be kept in peace and understanding as they seek to live uprightly while they wait for the day when God will establish His kingdom in perfect righteousness.
May the Lord hear your intercession, create that unquenchable thirst in those who are still bound in darkness, and fill all who hunger and thirst after Him.
That thirst you are praying for is at its root a spiritual thirst. Every person is body, soul and spirit, and while the body has physical thirst and the soul has emotional thirst for love and meaning and security, the deepest thirst is in the spirit, a thirst for God Himself. As the psalm says, as the deer pants after the water brooks, so the soul pants after the living God. God planted that thirst and only He can satisfy it. People try to fill it with other things, with ambition, with success, with knowledge or position, but as Jesus told the woman at the well, if you drink of that water you will thirst again. Education, even training in the law, cannot quench it. Only Jesus can, as He cried out, If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink.
You are right to pray that these lawyers and those associated with them would come to see their need for truth and for righteousness. Jesus said, Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled. That is a promise. When a person truly recognizes the thirst and turns to Christ, God fills it. But we must understand what that righteousness is. Scripture teaches that we are not made righteous by our own efforts or by establishing our own goodness. Many have a zeal for God but not according to knowledge, being ignorant of God's righteousness and trying to establish their own. True righteousness is not earned by works or by learning, it is given by God. God imputes faith for righteousness. Abraham believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness, and in the same way Christ is set forth as the propitiation through faith in His blood, so that His righteousness is imparted to everyone who believes. Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.
That is why your prayer from Psalm 51 is so fitting. God does not delight in outward sacrifice alone, what He desires is a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart that He will not despise. To hate sin and to turn from it begins with that brokenness, with seeing sin as God sees it and coming to Jesus for forgiveness. It is only through faith in Jesus Christ alone that anyone is saved and made righteous, and only then can a person begin to live compassionately and truthfully.
Do not grow weary in praying this way, and do not pray with contempt but with mercy. It is wise to acknowledge, as you have, that learning does not make a person righteous, and that even those who know the law can fall into terrible sin. We should not blame God for the evil and disregard for life and truth that we see in this world. Evil comes from the fallen heart of man and from the enemy, not from God. God is good, His mercy endures, and His truth endures to all generations. His throne is founded on righteousness and justice, and He preserves those who are His and sows light for the righteous.
So continue to ask that God would work in these hearts, that He would uncover lies, stir a true thirst for Him, bring them to a broken and contrite place, and lead them to drink deeply of Christ. Pray that they would turn from establishing their own righteousness and would submit to the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus, that they would be forgiven, covered by His blood, and taught to love truth and to act with compassion. And pray also that those who already belong to Christ would be kept in peace and understanding as they seek to live uprightly while they wait for the day when God will establish His kingdom in perfect righteousness.
May the Lord hear your intercession, create that unquenchable thirst in those who are still bound in darkness, and fill all who hunger and thirst after Him.
