Silas
Beloved of All
Your prayer reflects a heart that longs for what God Himself longs to give, a deep and 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 a natural human achievement. God plants it within us, and only He can satisfy it. Every person is body, soul and spirit, and while the body thirsts for water and the emotions thirst for love and meaning, the spirit thirsts for God. People try to quench that thirst with many things, with education, with success, with the keeping of laws, but Jesus said if you drink of that water you will thirst again. Only when we come to Him and drink does He satisfy that inner thirst, and out of that satisfied heart flows living water.
That is why your prayer for these lawyers and representatives is so needed. Education and knowledge of the law cannot make a person righteous before God. Scripture speaks of those who have a zeal for God but not according to knowledge, who are ignorant of God's righteousness and go about trying to establish their own righteousness by their works. They stumble because they have not submitted to the righteousness which God provides. God's righteousness is not earned. Abraham believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness, and that was before any religious act. To the one who does not trust in his own works but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. God imputes the righteousness of Christ to us through faith in Jesus Christ alone. Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.
You quoted Psalm 51 rightly, that God does not delight in outward sacrifice but desires a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart. That is what must happen in any heart that has been bound by lies and sin. The Holy Spirit must work to bring conviction, to show sin for what it is, so that a person not only sees it but hates it and turns from it. Without that breaking, a person will continue to justify what is evil in God's eyes and disregard what is precious to Him, including human life and honest communication.
It is right that you do not pray from a place of boasting or looking down on others. All have fallen short of the glory of God, and no one can claim righteousness by his own goodness or learning. Your grief over dishonesty and the disregard for life is a right grief, and God shares it. He is not the author of death or of these evils, and He grieves over the sin that has brought such brokenness into the world. He is the one who redeems and who will one day make all things new, where righteousness dwells.
Continue to pray as you have, that God would stir these hearts and create within them a true thirst for Him and for His truth. Pray that they would see that truth is not an idea but a Person, and that freedom Jesus promised comes only through knowing Him. Pray that the Holy Spirit, who indeed intercedes for us, would draw them to see their need, to turn to Jesus for forgiveness through His shed blood, and to receive the righteousness that comes only by faith. And pray that those who already belong to Christ among them would be covered, given peace and understanding, and taught to walk in compassion and true righteousness.
God hears that kind of prayer, the prayer that asks for His will to be done and for hearts to be made thirsty for what alone can satisfy them.
Jesus said blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled. That hunger is not a natural human achievement. God plants it within us, and only He can satisfy it. Every person is body, soul and spirit, and while the body thirsts for water and the emotions thirst for love and meaning, the spirit thirsts for God. People try to quench that thirst with many things, with education, with success, with the keeping of laws, but Jesus said if you drink of that water you will thirst again. Only when we come to Him and drink does He satisfy that inner thirst, and out of that satisfied heart flows living water.
That is why your prayer for these lawyers and representatives is so needed. Education and knowledge of the law cannot make a person righteous before God. Scripture speaks of those who have a zeal for God but not according to knowledge, who are ignorant of God's righteousness and go about trying to establish their own righteousness by their works. They stumble because they have not submitted to the righteousness which God provides. God's righteousness is not earned. Abraham believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness, and that was before any religious act. To the one who does not trust in his own works but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. God imputes the righteousness of Christ to us through faith in Jesus Christ alone. Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.
You quoted Psalm 51 rightly, that God does not delight in outward sacrifice but desires a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart. That is what must happen in any heart that has been bound by lies and sin. The Holy Spirit must work to bring conviction, to show sin for what it is, so that a person not only sees it but hates it and turns from it. Without that breaking, a person will continue to justify what is evil in God's eyes and disregard what is precious to Him, including human life and honest communication.
It is right that you do not pray from a place of boasting or looking down on others. All have fallen short of the glory of God, and no one can claim righteousness by his own goodness or learning. Your grief over dishonesty and the disregard for life is a right grief, and God shares it. He is not the author of death or of these evils, and He grieves over the sin that has brought such brokenness into the world. He is the one who redeems and who will one day make all things new, where righteousness dwells.
Continue to pray as you have, that God would stir these hearts and create within them a true thirst for Him and for His truth. Pray that they would see that truth is not an idea but a Person, and that freedom Jesus promised comes only through knowing Him. Pray that the Holy Spirit, who indeed intercedes for us, would draw them to see their need, to turn to Jesus for forgiveness through His shed blood, and to receive the righteousness that comes only by faith. And pray that those who already belong to Christ among them would be covered, given peace and understanding, and taught to walk in compassion and true righteousness.
God hears that kind of prayer, the prayer that asks for His will to be done and for hearts to be made thirsty for what alone can satisfy them.
