Do you pray as a slave?

Imagine you grew up the son or daughter to the king. You were the heir to the throne. But that throne can’t be yours until your father says it’s yours. It might be when he dies, it might be when he’s too old to rule. But until that time, you don’t get to exercise your authority. Instead, you have to listen to those who are in authority over you. Just like the servants of the castle.

Until Christ came and did his important work, we were like the heirs to the throne: we had to do what the law told us to do. It was our only choice. But when Christ came it was like the king said to his child, "Now the time is right." Christ has set us free to exercise our status as heir and not as a slave.

Think about when you pray to God. Are you a slave or are you free? Is God your father or is he  your slave owner?

Slavery is the poison that can destroy faith. It comes naturally to all of us.We can become slaves to our own works. We think God loves us because we do good works. Even our prayers can become something we do in order to make God happy, because we have to. Why do you pray before a meal? “Well, it’s what we do.” Then your prayer is worthless and it would have been better if you kept your mouth shut. This slavish attitude dishonors God.

The other end of the spectrum is we become slaves to our sins. Instead of slavishly trying to earn God’s reward, we reject God’s favor with our sins. Our prayer life dwindles because we’re too wrapped up in our selfish pleasures. Or we get buried in guilt and think that we’re too sinful to pray; that I haven’t done enough good for God to hear my prayer—a perverted form of selfishness.

Either way, slavery ruins your relationship with God because it corrupts Christ’s work and makes you a slave to the law again. If you want to focus only on your work, then your work had better be perfect or you will suffer the curse of everlasting death.

I’d rather have the freedom that Christ earned, and I know you would, too. And that’s exactly why Christ came. He didn’t come to live a perfect life in order to show us how to live perfectly. He came to be a slave to the law so we wouldn't have to. And he was the perfect slave. He never disobeyed and he always did the job perfectly.

Jesus’ own prayers reflected that perfection. On the cross he prayed for his enemies’ forgiveness. During his last days on earth, he prayed for the disciples and you and me. He was motivated by his love for the Father to cry out to him in prayer. And he did all of that to buy you back from your own slavery. So you don’t need to be a slave to the law in order to be saved! Christ did that on your behalf and earned you a new status as a free child of God.

So when you pray to God as your father, realize what that means. You are not a slave, but one of God’s free children. Your prayers don’t make God any happier with you than he already is because of Christ. There is no pressure to pray—do this or else! No! We pray because God has picked us up from the wreckage of our slavery and made us his children. He adopted you into his family. We pray, because, like Christ, we naturally want to talk to our father and he always wants to listen to us. There is nothing standing between you and your father. There is nothing holding back his love from you. So cry out with your prayers because your father wants to hear them.