Today we continue in the word of God as we study the Sermon on the Mount. We look at the words in verse 10: "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." Today we are thinking about this verse: "Yuan ni de guo jiang lin, yuan ni de zhi yi xing zai di shang, ru tong xing zai tian shang yi yang." But today I would like to look at this passage of scripture in connection with verse 8. Verse 8 says, "When you pray, do not heap up empty phrases, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him." We are looking at these two passages of scripture together. We need to know what God's will is concerning prayer. Since God already knows our needs, what is the purpose of our praying? Why do we need to pray at all? Why does God want us to pray? Does he need our prayers? These are the questions we want to consider together today.
Today we come to ask: what is God's fundamental will regarding prayer? Today we continue to study these questions, because they directly affect our prayer life. When we pray, we may not even know whether prayer is necessary. It seems like a waste of energy — since God already knows my needs, what is the point of my praying? The scripture clearly says he knows what we need. Since God is God, of course he knows. So what importance does my praying or not praying have? What is the need? What is the necessity? These are the questions we will study together.
Regarding the question, first, whether God needs our prayers — what do you think? Do you think God needs our prayers? In what way would he need our prayers?
The more I ponder a certain theologian's statement — that God doesn't need our prayers, but that he wants our prayers — the less profound I find that statement to be, and the less meaningful that statement appears to me. To say that God doesn't need our prayers, but that he wants our prayers, what exactly are we to understand by this? Are we to understand it somewhat like this? We need food, but we don't actually need the vegetable to go with the food. I mean, we don't need to have soy sauce inside. We don't need to have salt or sugar or vinegar and the like. It makes the food taste nicer. But do you need those things? Couldn't you live very well? Couldn't you survive very well without all of those things, the flavoring agents? Now, when you say we don't need a thing, but we want it, it seems to me that it's rather like talking about the icing on the cake. We can have the cake, but we don't really need the icing. I find this kind of a statement exceedingly unsatisfactory. To say that God wants our prayers, but he doesn't need it, is like saying, well, he doesn't need the icing on the cake. He may want the cake, but he can do very well without the rest of it. So that whether we pray or not seems to be a matter of indifference to God. It's rather nice to have it, but it doesn't matter very much whether we pray or not.
Now, this kind of statement is objectionable, because it's not scriptural. And I think it's not surprising to you by now that theologians are very good at making non-scriptural statements.
This theologian says that God doesn't need our prayers, but is happy to receive them. I think about this statement, and the more I think about it, the less meaningful it seems. What exactly does this statement mean? To say that God doesn't need our prayers, but is happy to receive them. It's like saying: when I eat, I don't necessarily need vegetables — just rice is enough. Whether there are vegetables or not is not essential. Or even if I eat vegetables, I don't necessarily need to add salt, sugar, or vinegar. I don't need to season the food. These are things I like to have, but don't need to have. So our prayers, in this view, are like something God doesn't really need — like a piece of candy. Eating candy is not a necessity. But it's nice to have. If you can have it, fine. If not, it doesn't matter. But if you can have it, it's nice. So our prayers are optional for God. He can receive them, and that's nice, but if he doesn't get them, it doesn't matter. Is this kind of thinking consistent with the Bible's teaching? If God says we don't need to pray, then it's like our prayers just add a little sugar or vinegar to his life. If he doesn't get them, it's no big deal. Is this the Bible's teaching?
When we look at and examine this teaching, this statement, I think it represents the thinking of so many Christians, and that's why I'm quoting it. I think that so many Christians really do feel that prayer is not very essential as far as God is concerned, that if we didn't pray, God wouldn't have missed anything anyway, nothing of any importance. It's like the extra sweet — if you got it, it's fine. If you didn't get it, it doesn't really matter.
Now is this how we should regard prayer? And I find that what this theologian has said perhaps represents not what the Bible says, but perhaps represents what the Christian thinks. Because if we felt that God really wanted — in the sense of really needed — our prayers in some special sense of need, then we would see to it that he got the prayers that he so required of us. But seeing that God doesn't really need our prayers, then we feel that God doesn't miss anything if we didn't pray. Isn't that how you feel? Well surely, if you didn't pray, God didn't miss anything. It doesn't matter. He's not going to miss your prayer. My prayer is so weak and feeble and disorganized and lacking in grammatical niceties. I mean, it's not like an essay by Milton or anybody like this. So I mean, if Milton didn't offer up his prayer, his beautiful statements that he makes, God might miss it. But my prayer — what difference does it make to God?
Now if you think like this, then clearly you have really no incentive to pray, and that's why I want to get at the root of this question. If God is not going to miss my prayers, then it doesn't really matter whether I pray or not. Isn't that what you think? And isn't that what that theologian has said? Well, I want to show you that both this statement of the theologian and our thinking is false. It matters very much to God whether we pray or not. And I'd like that realization to sink deep into our minds. It matters to God. He does miss our prayer. It's not just a question of having an extra sweet, one more or one less, it doesn't matter. It matters very much to God whether we pray. And this is the point I'd like you to deeply bear in mind.
We think that since this theologian has said God doesn't need our prayers, and whether we pray or not makes no difference to God — like saying an extra piece of candy is nice, but not getting it is fine too, and since I don't particularly like candy anyway, having it or not makes no difference to me. If we have this concept of prayer, then we don't feel any need to pray at all. We think: today I didn't pray, and God doesn't care. My prayers aren't eloquent anyway, my sentences aren't good, and what I say in my prayers isn't very coherent. Some theologian's prayer may be precise and accurate in every sentence, but mine might be better left unsaid. If we have this kind of thinking, then of course we don't feel any necessity to pray. After all, God won't feel he's missing anything. Is this consistent with the Bible's teaching? Let us look at God's word for the answer.
Now when we look at this saying, I want to show it to be false in the light of scriptural teaching. Because I want to show it false, first: what do we mean by "need"? When we say that God does not need our prayers, what exactly do we mean by "need"? If we mean by "need" that God doesn't depend for his existence upon our prayers, then clearly he doesn't need our prayers in that particular sense. But that is not the only sense of the word "need." You see, we need a lot more than just things for physical survival in any sense of that word.
Let's ask the question: does a husband need the love of his wife? Does the wife need the love of her husband? Now if you mean in the sense whether she or he would survive physically without that love, obviously he doesn't, or she doesn't, need that love. I mean, if your husband stopped loving you, or if he died and he could no more love you, you are not going to die tomorrow. Or if your wife died, or she ceased loving you because of that or for any other reason, you are not going to die tomorrow either. Physically you will continue to survive, at least in most cases you will. So in that sense, for physical survival, you don't need that love.
Do the parents need the love of the children? Do the children need the love of the parents? There are parents who look after their children without loving them. Do the parents need that love? Many children are brought up in homes with no love. Do the children need that love? Well, they don't need that love if we are talking in terms of physical survival. So long as they have food, they can exist. But is life mere existence? So to speak about needs, we have first to define what we mean by "need." It is wrong of any theologian or anybody else to say that God does not need our prayers, because that kind of a statement is meaningless unless you have defined "need."
The point here is this: just as I very much need the love of others — not in the sense that I cannot survive physically without it, but that life would not be life without that kind of love — then I need love in a very real sense. I need love. Everybody needs love. Everybody requires love, in order not merely to survive physically, but to make life rich and meaningful and purposeful. Life is not just eating and sleeping. The person locked up in solitary confinement in a jail also gets a certain amount of food to keep him alive. But is being confined in solitary confinement life? Of course not. Life is not just having bread and water. In that sense, human beings need much more than just food and clothing. "Man does not live by bread alone," the scripture told us. We need more than that.
Now if this is so, does not the scripture make it clear to us that God loves us and that he wants our love? But when we say "wants our love" — why should he want it? He has no need for it. Why should I want love from anybody if I don't really need it? Is not even the word "want" needing to be defined? There are things that we want because we need them, and what we don't desperately need, we don't really want. We don't really feel an inclination to have. I don't need that extra sweet. I don't really want it. If you give it to me, I'll take it. If you don't give it to me, I don't mind, because I don't really want it. Why don't I really want it? Because I don't really see a need for it. I have no particular need for that sweet. Now you can see that when we speak in spiritual things, we have to be very careful of our language, to define our words clearly and fully.
Now in a very real sense, the scripture tells us that God wants our love and he needs our prayer — not because his existence depends upon it, any more than my existence depends on my wife's love for me. But that does not mean that, because I can still survive without that love, that I don't really need that love. That's not correct. Any more than a child can live on bread and water. He doesn't need his parents to love him to survive physically. But in a very real sense, he needs that love. He needs that love. And whether we can understand it or not, the scripture tells us that God wants and needs our love in that sense — in the same sense as the son needs the father's love and the father needs the son's love.
That may be a revolutionary thought to us, that God needs anything at all. But if he didn't need anything at all, that he created us just for the fun of it, just that he thinks it's great fun to have us around — now, I suspect that in many Christians' minds, they think exactly like that. God didn't need us. Why does he want us? But he created us because, well, maybe it's good fun to create some more beings. After all, it's great fun. If you think of God in those terms, clearly you don't see the point why he created anything at all. He is perfectly self-sufficient in himself. Why create anything? Just for the fun of it? Just because it happens to be that he likes to create? In this case, of course, whether we exist or not doesn't really matter. It just happens to be that God has some fun creating us. Now if that's all there is to it, then I don't find that teaching in scripture. And as we press on, we're going to see what we mean — whether it matters to God whether we exist or not, whether it matters to God whether we love him or not, whether it matters to God whether we pray or not. That is the question.
So we can just say that God doesn't need our prayers. We can answer, like this theologian, that God doesn't need them but is happy to receive them. But both the words "happy" and "need" need to be carefully analyzed. You ask: does God need my prayers? If you mean: would God continue to exist if he didn't receive my prayers? Of course he would continue to exist. In terms of the question of existence, you could say God doesn't need our prayers. But the word "need" is not limited to this one aspect. You ask: does a wife need her husband's love? Does a husband need his wife's love? Do children need their parents' love? Do parents need their children's love? If you mean: would they survive if they didn't receive that love? Then of course they don't need that love, because they could certainly survive. If your husband passed away, you wouldn't necessarily die the next day. You would still have to go on living, even with a broken heart. In that sense, you can survive without that love. In that regard, you don't need that love for physical survival. But "need" does not have only this one meaning. Because physical survival is not the entirety of what "need" encompasses. Many parents don't really love their children — they find them annoying, and since they've been born, well, that's that. They just provide food and clothing. Many children grow up in families without receiving their parents' love. But do they die? No, they don't die. They are still alive. But does this prove that they don't need their parents' love? They grew up without it, so you could say they don't need it. But humans do not live by food and clothing alone. Because life is not merely about existence. If you put a person in a prison cell, lock him up, give him bread and water, he can still live. He won't die. But is that what you call life? So you ask: does he need fellowship with people outside? Does he need other people's love? Of course he needs it. But even if you don't give it to him, he can still physically survive. That is not in question. Similarly, does God need our prayers? If you ask whether his existence would be affected, of course not. Not receiving my prayers is no problem. But that doesn't mean our prayers are unimportant to him, or that it doesn't matter whether we pray or not.
Then we can ask: if God really has no needs at all, why did he create us? Was it because he had nothing to do, sitting in heaven, not knowing what to do with his time? So he thought, "Well, I'm sitting here getting bored. Let me create some people to play with." I'm afraid many people have this idea about God's creation — that God doesn't really need people. He already has everything within himself. But since he has nothing to do, he created people for amusement, just for fun. If we have this kind of feeling about God's creation, then we feel quite pitiful — like we're just God's toys, existing to give him some pleasure. Our existence or non-existence doesn't matter to God at all. This kind of thinking is very common. So whether we pray or not doesn't matter. Whether I exist or not doesn't matter. God doesn't need me anyway. And people even say this statement glorifies God: "God doesn't need me, because he is God." But then why did he create you? He certainly doesn't need you even more. He just created you, that's all. Is this kind of answer really consistent with the Bible? If so, then whether I pray or not ultimately doesn't matter. Whether I exist or not doesn't matter. And prayer is even less important. If we have this feeling about prayer, then the entire Christian life seems meaningless. I'm just like a dog in someone's house. Whether there's a dog or not doesn't matter. Having a dog is nice sometimes, but also annoying sometimes. When you don't want the dog, you just take it to the vet and have it put down. If that's how God sees us, then being a Christian — the meaning of our very existence — becomes very, very thin. But is this what the Bible teaches? Is this what this theologian is saying about prayer being unnecessary — that God doesn't necessarily need your prayers, but is happy to receive them? How terrible that statement is! We see that the Bible does not have this meaning at all. The Bible tells us that our relationship with God is like the relationship between father and child, between children and their father. It says that children need God's love, and God also needs our love. I dare to say, on the basis of scripture, that he needs our love. He wants our love. And it's not a matter of having or not having a piece of candy.
So the question is this: Does our prayer matter to God? Does it matter to God whether we love him or not? Are we then just created because God, having nothing to do in heaven, decided that since it's very boring sitting there, nothing to do, he decided to create some human beings and enjoy himself, have a bit of fun, because he didn't really need us any more than if we had a dog at home — we don't really need that dog, but we have it there for fun? Is this the concept of man that we should have on the basis of God's word — that after all, it doesn't matter whether even we exist or not, let alone whether we prayed or not?
Now I want to tell you on the basis of scripture, and I want to set all pious statements aside. I am not interested in any kind of pious statements that say, "God is perfect in himself, he doesn't need anybody." Of course we don't need anybody. I can live without anybody. I can go out there and live on bread and water. In that sense, we don't need anybody. Why do you need me? Why do we need each other? But to think in this kind of way is to miss the whole point. We do not glorify God by saying this kind of thing whatsoever. In fact, we have only degraded God. It is not so glorious to be able to say, "God really doesn't need anything or anybody," and therefore the only reason we can think of why he created us was just for the sheer fun of it, since he doesn't really need us at all.
There is a definite sense in which God needs us, and I am not afraid to say this on the basis of God's word, because the Bible tells us that it matters to God. You see, if he didn't need us, it doesn't matter to him whether we pray or don't pray, isn't it? If he doesn't need us, what does it matter if we pray or don't pray? What does it matter to him if we love him or don't love him? He doesn't need us anyway. He has no loss. If I don't pray, he has lost nothing. If I don't love him, he has lost nothing. So why should it matter to him whether we prayed or not?
The Bible tells us that it matters to him very, very much. Not for his survival — not that his existence depends on it — but that it matters to him because God is, in his nature, love. And love does not make fun of other people. It doesn't make fools of other people. Love does not say to others, "Well, I don't really need you. You don't matter to me." Love cares, and love is concerned about others. And therefore that concern means that you matter to God. It is in the nature of God that we matter to him. Now that is something that we need to take some thinking about. And when we deeply realize that we do matter to God — as God said to Israel, "He that touches you touches the apple of my eye" — the inside of the eyeball is called the apple of the eye. "He that touches you touches the apple of my eye." And you know how sensitive the apple of the eye is. That means to say, "You matter to me so much that if anyone hurts you in the slightest, it's like touching the inside of my eye." I am concerned about this. You see, we are not just toys that God wants to play around with. We are very precious to God. We matter as much to him as the apple of our eye matters to us. That is the biblical teaching. Whether we can understand it or not doesn't matter. What matters is that God reveals to us how much he cares for us, how much we matter to him.
Now if Israel, for example, if human beings didn't matter to God, what difference does it make? Why should God get angry if Israel doesn't listen to him? You say, "Okay, who cares? I'll sweep you all into the sea, be done with it. Finish. Wipe them all out. Wipe the slate clean." Now human beings could do that. Yes, I'm not surprised if human beings would do that. "You are all a nuisance to me. You are as much trouble to me as bed bugs. I'll just pour boiling water over you and be done with it. Finish. Wipe them all out." That's human thinking. That's how the Nazis thought: the Jews are a pestilence in the world, so we'll put them all in the gas chambers. That is very much how human beings think. You don't matter to me. You are a nuisance to me. So I'm going to wipe you all out.
Sometimes we wonder why God didn't wipe men out. In fact, I've been often asked the question: when human beings sin, why didn't God just wipe them out? Isn't that typical? That's how human beings think. They offend you, they annoy you, so you just wipe them out. Thanks be to God, God isn't like that. Remember what he said last week: "Hallowed be thy name." God is holy. He is different from any human being. He doesn't think as we do. Isaiah says, "My thoughts are not your thoughts. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my thoughts higher than your thoughts." Completely different. Don't try to reason, as I said and warned you last week, from human thinking to God's thinking, because you're going to draw the wrong conclusion. And that's exactly what this theologian did. He thinks, "Well, God doesn't need man, so whether we pray or not, he wants it." I don't know why he wants it, since he doesn't need it anyway. It's like that extra sweet. It makes my mouth feel better. No, no. The scriptural teaching is not like this. Brothers and sisters, bear deeply in mind this point from this day forth: that whether we pray or not matters to God, because we matter to him. And we matter to him because he loves us. Why he loves us, I don't understand. But the Bible tells us that it is in the nature of God. God, as to his very nature, is love. I don't understand it, because my nature is not love. But his nature is love. And I know that one day, when he changes my nature completely into his nature, I will understand.
I shared the other day, on Friday, the fact that human nature is such that we don't really care about other people. As I was talking with my dear friend, the physicist that I mentioned to some of you before, he shared with me once: he said, "My problem in the Christian life is I can't feel any sense of concern for other people." But thanks be to God, God is changing him. And this last letter that I received from him showed a complete difference of attitude. His concern for others really astonished me. This was the same person who said to me a few years ago, "I don't feel any concern for other people." But God has been changing him, and now he begins to have a concern for other people that really astonishes me. You see, God changes us. One day we are going to fully understand why God loves us. Right now we don't fully understand, because we don't see anything very lovely about human beings, including ourselves. Why should anybody love me? That is a mystery. It's a mystery you don't understand. I don't see anything very lovely about me. I don't see anything lovely about others. But God loves us. And one day, when we are changed, we will understand.
So let us be extremely clear about the reality of God's concern for us, that we do matter to God. And because we matter to God, it matters to him whether we pray or not. If you love a person, you want to hear from that person. You long for a letter to come. You want a telephone call to come, right? You don't get that letter, you're chewing all your nails, wondering: "Why? What's the matter? Is the post office broken down? Has he hurt his hand? Has he hurt himself? Or has she hurt herself?" And so you are worrying. It matters to you. And so in the same way, it matters to God whether we pray or not. Try and get this into your mind, no matter how hard you find it to understand, because your character and my character is not yet like God's. But may God help us. It matters to him because he loves us. And he loves us to the extent that he was prepared to lay down his life for us. If you want proof that he cares about us, just think about that: he laid down his life for us. You find that hard to understand? Sure. Paul says, "Who can understand the love of God, that he would do something like that for us? We would hardly die for a righteous man, let alone for a sinner." But that's how God's nature is. We must get a completely different concept of God's nature. That's what the Sermon on the Mount is helping us to have.
But let us press on to another question, and it is this. We've just seen that God, in verse 8, already knows our needs. Okay, you say, grant it that we matter to God. Granted that he wants to love us, and that he does love us, and that we matter very much to him. But being God, he already knows what we need. You see, why should I pray? Okay, I accept that I matter to God. I marvel about this. I appreciate this. I really thank God for this, that I matter to him. But seeing that he already knows what I need, what does it matter if I pray or not? He already knows before I open my mouth. The Bible says before even the words were formed on your lips, he knows what your need is. Doesn't it make it unnecessary for me to talk?
Now here we need to answer in one or in two ways. First of all, the question is not whether he knows, but whether we know what we need. You see, the point is not whether God knows what we need. The question is whether we know what we need. And half the time, it's we who don't know what we need. And it is essential to God that we come to realize what we need.
The question then, in this sense, is this: when a man is drowning, the point is not whether it is important for the people on the shore to hear him calling. The question is whether it's important to himself whether he calls or not. Now if he doesn't cry and say, "Help, I am drowning," the people didn't hear him call. Now does it matter to the person on the shore whether he heard him or not? It doesn't matter, because that means no skin off his nose. He is not drowning. So whether you call or not, a person on the shore doesn't lose anything. Now if you are drowning, it's not that that person needs to hear your calls — you need that he should hear your call. Do you see the point? That's what the important thing is.
So here the question is this: first, you have got to realize your own need. When we are being lost, the point is not whether God knows whether we are lost. The point is whether we know we are being lost. This is something that is very important.
But now certainly, from the human point of view, that's where the illustration ceases. The illustration means that the man on the shore has got to know whether you are drowning so that he can come and help you. God already knows that. But the question is this: do you know what your need is? Now not until you are actually sinking do you realize, "I am in need of salvation. I am in need for someone to help me." So the first point to bear in mind is this: though God may know, he must wait till you know whether you need something or not, whether you need salvation or not. And we are going to see why this is so.
You see, it follows in this way: that whether we know something or not is going to make a difference to us. And I hope I can put this across clearly enough and simply enough that everyone can follow. You see, first of all, unless we know our own needs, we are not prepared to do anything about it — such as crying out for help that I have just mentioned. You have got first to know your own need, otherwise you wouldn't do anything about it.
The second point is this: though you may know your need and want to do something about it, it does not necessarily follow that you will call on God to meet that need. You may just try — for example, though you are sinking in the water, you may just beat your hands, bash around in the water, and hope for the best. You don't yell for help at all.
I've shared with some of you — it's so curious in my case — that many years ago, when I first went to Switzerland as a little boy, when my father went to the United Nations in Geneva, I went to Switzerland and stayed there for about a year. Now one day I was in a hotel, and I looked out of the window, and I saw this beautiful swimming pool. I said, "Oh, so beautiful." I saw some grown-ups and some young boys about my age swimming in there. I said to my mother, "I'd like to go to the swimming pool." She said, "But you don't know how to swim." I said, "Well, it doesn't matter. I can still go and play in the water." "Okay, okay. If you want to go to the swimming pool, you go."
So I went to the swimming pool, and there I stood by the pool looking around. And then I saw a little boy there, just about my age, my size, a Swiss boy. And he jumped into the water, and he paddled across there. I said, "That's too easy. Who can't do that? Ridiculous. All you do is jump in the water and you move your two hands. I mean, I know how to move my hands. I also know how to jump. Quite simple." So there I go, and I dive into the water. Going down — hey, something's gone wrong here. And what was going to be a nice easy stroke like this fellow, it turned into a wild smashing job. And you see, to make things worse is this: having never been to a swimming pool, I didn't know there was a deep end and a shallow end. And of all things, of course, I had dived in at the deep end. So by now you can imagine that there was a terrific splash and beating and smashing around in the water. And nobody came to my help, because of course I had jumped in at the deep end, and everybody thought I must be a swimmer who had jumped in at the deep end, and that this smashing up of the water was just like most boys do — they do foolish things and just enjoy themselves smashing the water up. So all that happened was everybody was looking very amusedly at me while I was smashing, trying to save my life, in the water.
You see the point was this: up to then, I didn't know there was any need for me to learn to swim. I thought — I mean, who needs to learn to swim? Anybody who knows how to move their hands, jump in there. It's simple. You don't need to waste time going to learn to swim. If that's all there is to swimming, that's easy. And not until I began to sink did it dawn on me I had a need — a need to learn to swim — that it wasn't as simple as it looked. You see, I didn't know my need, and I had to go through this experience to cause me to realize my need. If I had not dived in that day, if somebody said, "Do you know how to swim?" I said, "Sure, it's simple. I saw that boy jump in, he just dived in there, moved his two hands. I can do that. Sure, I know how to swim." But wait till I tried it. Then I discovered my real need.
Now the question then is not whether God knows my need. My mother knew my need, but I didn't know my need. She told me, "You don't know how to swim." But I didn't believe it. I said, "Sure, this is simple." So she knew my need, but I didn't know my need. Now here is the first thing, then: that before somebody can be helped, he has got to know his own need. If he is going to be properly helped, he must be brought to realize his need.
But once I know my own need, I may not call on God to help — any more than I didn't call out for help at all. In fact, I couldn't very well call out for help — the water was pouring into my mouth. But nobody came to my help, and I didn't jump or make any attempt to scream out for help. I still battled on, until finally I grabbed, very exhaustedly, the side of the pool and hung on. I had managed somehow to get on to the side of the pool. Now in those cases, we can still manage somehow to save ourselves. But you see here then, once I know my need, I may not turn to God for help. And God is going to wait, because if we think we can do something for ourselves, we are not going to need God to do it for us.
So there are two things we need to know in this connection: first, whether we know our needs, and secondly, whether we will turn to God to meet that need, or whether we will turn to ourselves to try and solve the problem. Now in many things we can solve the problem ourselves, but if so, then we don't need God, of course. So the question is whether we need God, and whether we realize our need for God. And that is essential in prayer. If there is something I can do myself, what's the point of my calling on God to do it for me? That is clear. So why do we need God?
Since God already knows my needs, is it really irrelevant whether I pray or not? We could say: "Okay, I accept what you said — that God loves us, that God cares for us, that we are not just God's toys, that we are very precious to God." But since he already knows my needs, does it matter whether I pray or not? The answer to this question is here. The question is not whether God knows my needs. The question is whether I know my needs. If I know — the first step — but many people don't even know their own needs, so they wouldn't come before God. Or they may already know their needs, but they don't necessarily ask God to solve their problem. They might try to figure it out themselves and save themselves.
Like the example I just gave: when I was about twelve years old, I went to Switzerland. From the hotel window I looked down and saw a swimming pool. I had never been to a swimming pool — in Shanghai, I had never seen one. So when I went to the pool, I said to my mother, "I want to go swimming." She said, "You don't know how to swim." Now, she knew I couldn't swim, but I didn't know I couldn't swim. I didn't believe I couldn't swim. So when I got to the pool, I saw a boy about my age and size — he just jumped in and swam across like a fish, easily moving his two hands. I thought, "This is too simple. You say I can't swim? I can jump, and I can move my two hands. It's too simple." So I just jumped into the water. Oh no! When I jumped in and started moving my hands, it didn't work. I wasn't going forward — I was going down, sinking. This was terrible. Instead of moving my hands slowly, I was thrashing wildly, splashing water everywhere. But no one came to save me. The first problem was that although others knew my need, I myself didn't know my need. Unless I went through this experience, I wouldn't know my need. But even if I knew my need, I didn't necessarily ask anyone to help me.
# The Lord's Prayer: Thy Kingdom Come (cont.) — Matthew 6:10
When I dove into the water that time, I had jumped into the deep end of the pool. Why? Because I had never been to a swimming pool before, and I didn't know that pools had deep ends and shallow ends. When I first walked up to the pool, that side happened to be the deep end. I never walked around to see if there was a shallow end. I just stopped there and thought, "This is what a pool is like — you dive in and it's deep." There were quite a few people around, but they figured: since he jumped into the deep end, he must know how to swim. So no one came to help me. I was thrashing around in the water, and somehow I managed to get to the side and grab the edge of the pool.
So you see, this time no one saved me — I saved myself. In life, there are many things we can do ourselves; we don't need to ask God to help us. This time I was lucky, really. Because I didn't know where the edge of the pool was, I was thrashing around randomly. If my luck had been bad, I might have thrashed my way to the middle of the pool. Fortunately, my random thrashing somehow got me to the side.
But we can see that in prayer, we must first know what our needs are. Once we know our needs, our attitude undergoes a great change. If at some point you can't swim, and you see others swimming so easily, you'll say, "Of course I can swim." But unless you go through that experience, you won't know your own need. So you won't come with a humble heart to learn, or to ask others for help. This is the important first step in prayer: we must understand our needs. We must be willing to recognize, in our need, that our need cannot be met by others, nor can it be solved by ourselves — only God can answer it. God is waiting for us to know these two things: first, to know our need, and second, to know that only he can meet our need.
So here we see this very important fact, why God wants us to be able to pray. It's not whether he knows our needs, but whether we know our needs. And when we have known our needs, whether we will call on him to meet our needs. Now this has practical bearings on prayer, which is very obvious. If I do not sense a need, I will of course not ask God for that particular thing, because I don't sense my need for it. And secondly, if I sense a need, but I feel that I can meet that need myself, then I will also not pray to God for that particular thing. That is also obvious.
But then somebody may ask, why should God wait till you know your needs? Why doesn't he just meet your need first, before you ask? Now I have had that question put to me as well. Some people have said, why should I ask? God knows my need, and why shouldn't he just meet my need without waiting for me to realize my need? He can still meet it. Now what do you think about that, as a possibility? Suppose every time you have a need, God just quietly meets your need, without your knowing that you even had that need. Because since he has already met it, you never have a need.
Now don't you see the important thing? If God did things in this way, we would never consciously turn to God at all, because we never have a need. We are never conscious of any need. Do we not see that God uses the need to draw us to himself, that we may find the answer to our need in him? We see the need as a burden, but in fact it is a spiritual opportunity. Don't pray that God will take away all your needs. Pray rather that God will meet your needs. Don't pray that you will never have any needs, but rather pray that in every need, you may see the love and goodness of God.
Now supposing you have a friend — you will never see why you really need that friend. "A friend in need is a friend indeed," the Bible tells us. But if you never have a need, how will you ever know that that friend is a friend indeed? Isn't it? Is it not the same way, is it not true in the spiritual life? Is it not true that if God just quietly met all our needs, we would in fact be damaged spiritually, because we would never see the need for knowing God at all? Since all our needs have already been met, why do we need to know God? But in this way we will lose eternal life, since eternal life depends upon our knowing God. But if we have no needs, we will never come to God. If we never have to come to God, where is our opportunity of knowing him? We must come to God if we want to know God. But we won't come to him if we have no need. Isn't that perfectly obvious?
So how can we say, why doesn't God meet our needs in this way? He would be destroying us if he did that. Human beings are very good, sometimes out of good intention, at destroying other people. They have such good intentions — like good parents, they love their children so much that they spoil their children and ruin their children. Love must be wise. And to ask the question, why doesn't God just meet our need before the need arises, is to show the lack of wisdom that is another characteristic of human beings.
That is why there are children who grow up who don't ever love their parents, and their parents don't understand it. "We have loved him all our life. We have loved her all our life. And now he or she grows up without loving me." Don't blame the child. Blame yourself for your own foolishness and lack of wisdom. If you always give the child what he wants or what she wants before he or she ever asks for it, you are doing something exceedingly foolish. Because the child will never become aware of any need for you. Why do they need you? And because they don't become aware of the need for you, they will never see the need to draw near to you. And because they don't have a need for you, the result is they never come to know you. And that results in what is called the generation gap. The generation gap comes either from lack of love or too much human love. One of these two reasons always lies behind it. A spoiled child ends up being a child who doesn't love the parent. You say, "Well, I gave that child everything he wanted or everything she wanted." You are foolish, my friend. Learn from God. You must show the child that he or she needs you. Only so that you bring him to a consciousness of his need. Otherwise, he is never aware that he needs anything. He is self-sufficient. He is proud. He is arrogant. As spoiled children always are. They are badly behaved, arrogant children. They don't feel they need anything. They are inflated with a false sense of their own importance.
You see, God is so wise, isn't he? You may know that child's needs. That doesn't mean that you have to stuff them up with everything in advance. Let the child become aware of their needs. Let the child realize their needs. It is to help that child. And they will grow up appreciating you, loving you, thanking you, grateful for all you have done for them. Teach them to become grateful. Teach them to realize their needs. But they will never become grateful if they don't know their needs, and that you met their needs. You see how God is so wise and how foolish human beings are? So remember this. You can ruin a person either by not loving that person at all, or by loving that person in a foolish and unwise way, by giving that person everything that person wants before they even ask for it. So they have no sense of need and have a sense of their own sufficiency, which is in fact utterly unreal.
Oh, that we would learn from the wisdom of God to live our lives. God's ways are so perfect. And the only reason we don't understand his ways is because we are so foolish. So when a child has a need, for example, don't keep stuffing the child — maybe he's hungry now, stuff some food down his mouth. "You want a banana now? You sure you're not hungry? No? No? Okay, now have a banana, otherwise you're going to be hungry." What's so terrible for the child to feel some hunger? And then they say, "Mommy or Daddy, can I have something to eat?" And you give it to them. They're so grateful. "This banana tastes so delicious," because they're so hungry. But you keep stuffing the food down their throat — they're fed up with it. "Why are you always asking me whether I want a banana?" Oh yes. We don't understand the ways of God because we don't have his wisdom. Wait till the child needs something. They ask for it. Ask for it properly and nicely. "Do I really need it?" Do you see? Then you give it to them. Oh, they appreciate it so much. "Oh, it's so good. My daddy and mommy, they're so nice to me, so good to me." And then they understand. Now they understand.
You see, that is the way God deals with us as children. As a father deals wisely with his child, he waits till we ask. And when we have asked, and we realize our need, and we realize that only he can meet our needs — then we are filled with gratitude. "Oh, God is so good to me. He is so kind to me." But how would we ever come to realize this if God has been stuffing us with bananas all the time and with cakes? We don't need him. We say, "Don't keep stuffing me. I'm already a Peking duck and you're stuffing me now." And some children are spoiled just because of this. They almost resent their parents. They're fed up with their parents. "Always pampering me and getting after me and nagging me. He drives me nuts." But God doesn't deal with us in this way. Oh, so wise is God in his dealings with us. So perfect in his wisdom. It really causes me to marvel and to praise him and worship him.
Many children's relationship with their parents is poor for two reasons. One is that the parents don't love their children enough. The other is that they love their children without sufficient wisdom — blindly and foolishly, not waiting until the children understand their own needs. So they grow up proud on the one hand, and on the other hand feeling that they don't need anything. It's not that they don't have needs — they simply don't know their needs. That is the pity. The most pitiful person is the one who has needs but doesn't know it. Proud in this world, not even realizing that they really have nothing. So if you are a parent, you must let your children know their needs. This won't harm them — it will help them to know their needs. This is how God treats us — with great wisdom, like a father treating his children. When we know our needs, we won't be proud. When we know our needs and know that only God can solve our needs, we will have thanksgiving, praise, and love for God. So when we ask the question, "Why doesn't God give to me before I even feel the need?" — this question reveals a lack of wisdom. Thank the Lord, God is full of wisdom.
Now, another exceedingly important point in prayer is this: that when we exercise our will in prayer and come to God and ask from him, then we have exercised our will in asking something. So it is this: first we must understand our need, and having understood our need, we exercise our will in a specific direction. Now need is something that exercises the will more specifically. You see, if you have no need, you have to make no decisions. You have nothing in which you have to exercise your will to say, "What am I going to do about this need?" We have no particular need for you to exercise your mind and your will on it. And it is very important that God wants us to exercise our will.
You see, when I have a need, it is I who have asked for it. It is I who have made the decision to ask. My decision is involved. But you see, that is why we said just now, if parents continue to give to their children things that they haven't asked for, the children have made no decision on their part. They have been robbed of the opportunity to make a decision for themselves, to exercise their will in wanting this particular thing. You give them something they didn't want because they didn't ask for it. You wait till they want it. Then they will want that thing and therefore they will exercise their will — they will say, "I want this. I need this thing. Please give it to me." Then that is their decision. It is a decision that they have made in relation to a particular thing.
Now why is this important? It is important precisely in this way, because God, as we saw in last Friday's Bible study, does not treat us as robots or tape recorders, but as people capable of making their own choice. And the need is something that faces us with the need to make a choice. To take away the need and the necessity for a choice is to go against God's purpose. Choice is always made in the face of a need, in the face of having to confront a decision and to deal with it. And so if you as a parent take away the opportunity of your children to make decisions by simply — before they have even a chance to make a decision — you have already made a decision for them, then you are going to bring up children who are quite incapable of facing life.
That is why so many children who come from well-to-do homes and pampered homes are unable to face life. They have not had the opportunity of making, struggling with needs, fighting with needs. You will find children from poorer homes are often far superior, because all their life they have struggled with needs and problems and difficulties. They have become strong and tough through the facing of needs. But the children from well-to-do homes are often rather like jellyfish. They are incapable of standing on their own feet. They have an inflated sense of their own importance, but in the face of a test they collapse every time, because they are never given the chance to fight and wrestle and struggle with difficulties and with needs. It is the responsibility of a parent to provide the children with certain needs that they have to wrestle and struggle with, by which they become strong and able to make their own decisions.
And so in the same way, God wants us to make decisions. To realize our need and struggle with that need until we say, "God, here is my need. Will you meet my need?" We have made the decision to ask him. We have come to realize, first of course, he lets us struggle for a time. We find that there is no way. Often he wants us to be convinced that there is no one else who can meet that need but him. This is the reason why often in prayer you will find a delay. He doesn't answer right away. And you say, "Why not? Why not?" Because he wants you to struggle with that need until you realize there is nobody else who can meet that need but God.
You see, if he meets your need before you realize that only he can meet that need, first, your will has not been exercised. You have not wrestled with the matter. Notice, he didn't bless Jacob as soon as Jacob said, "Bless me." No, he didn't bless him. He let Jacob wrestle all night until the morning before he blessed him, when Jacob was weary, exhausted, having wrestled through all night. You see, God lets us wrestle. He doesn't spoil us. He lets us wrestle until we realize, "I have tried this, I have tried that, I have tried everything. I am utterly exhausted, Lord. I can't find an answer to this." Then God answers your need. Then you think, "Oh God, you are just so wonderful." Then you appreciate the wisdom and power of God. Why should he do for you what you can do for yourself? Why should he do for you what other people can do for you? He is not going to do that. But when you realize there is nowhere else to turn, you have exhausted your possibilities, you have exhausted every other possibility — now only God can answer. You see, that is the way he strengthens us. He makes us strong spiritually. You never have to be afraid. God never spoils us. He is not going to turn us into robots. He is not going to deprive us of the opportunity of exercising our will and exercising it to the limit.
These children have never faced the problems of life and struggled with them. They have never been given the opportunity to make any decisions. All the things they needed to decide, you decided for them. They don't need to use their own will to do anything. So you will also find that children from poorer families grow up with a spirit of perseverance. They can stand on their own in the world. They can take charge and solve problems with confidence. But often the children from well-off families are of no use at all — they can't solve their own problems. If you push them out into the world, they would starve on the streets within days. They don't know how to struggle with life's problems. They are completely weak. Although they may think well of themselves, because they have never encountered real difficulties in the world, they don't even know what the world's problems are. When they encounter these problems, suddenly they realize, "I don't know how to deal with this." This is how parents harm their children.
So God has never treated us this way. We will find that, first, unless we know our own need, he will not answer us. When we know our need and say, "Ah, I have this need," he still doesn't answer our prayer right away. You will find that often you pray, and you wait and wait, and he doesn't answer. Why? He first lets you try to solve your own problem. You try, you struggle, you exhaust yourself. But still the problem isn't solved. Then you ask others for help. They try to help, but still can't solve your problem. Finally you say, "Lord, I have no way. I have tried everything. I am exhausted. Now please help me." At that point, he answers your prayer. Then you are filled with gratitude and say, "Lord, you are so great." If you could solve your own problem, why would he need to solve it for you? That way your will would never have the opportunity to be exercised.
So in prayer, God wants you to use your own will, to make your own decisions. We must understand a principle: being a Christian has never meant that God wants us to give up our own will and become like a tape recorder, like a machine, unable to make our own decisions, with God making all the decisions for us. "I don't know what to do — God tells me what to do." God would never do this. He wants you to think for yourself, to struggle for yourself, to make your own decisions. When you truly don't know what to do anymore, at that point God hears your prayer and says, "Alright, now you don't know what to do. I will now help you." But he wants you to go through a struggle, to help your spiritual life grow stronger by exercising your will. We truly thank the Lord. His wisdom is so wonderful, so great.
Realize this, brothers and sisters: becoming a Christian never means that you will be depersonalized. No, never. God wants you to exercise your will, and to exercise it to the limit. He is going to wait until with your own will you will say, "Your will be done on earth, and in my life, as in heaven." He is going to wait for you to say that. He is not going to take his will and cram it down your throat. Oh no, he is too good to do that. He is going to wait until you realize that there is no other way to meet your needs but the will of God, that there is no other solution to the problem but the will of God. So long as you say there is another solution to the problem, he is not going to move. Nothing will happen. Until that day you say, "Lord, your will be done. Your will be done on earth. Your will be done in my life, as in heaven." Before that, he will not move. Until your will is prepared to realize that it's only his will that can answer your problem. Until that day, you will find that God does not impose his will on you at all. He is not going to turn you into a robot. He is not going to say, "You don't have to exercise your will. I'll do it for you." Never.
Now this brings us to another point that is exceedingly interesting. Think about it. I would like you to realize one thing, and it is this: that sin is precisely that thing which is a violation of another person's will. Did you realize that? Sin is the violation, or the removal, or the cancellation of somebody else's will. And God will never do that to us. Think about it. What is robbery? Robbery or stealing is to remove from you something that you did not want to give away. A robber comes to you, points a gun at you and says, "Let's have the money." Whether you want to or not, it doesn't interest him in the slightest. Whether your will is functioning or not, he wants to take it against your will. He is going to crush your will by sticking this gun at you. That's why the gun is pointing at you — so that you cannot exercise your will. He wants to turn you into a robot that he can exploit. He's going to take that thing away.
Think of any sin you like, and you will see that sin is always the attempt to destroy the will of the other person, or to act contrary to his will. The same is true of murder, of course, in which you actually destroy the other person, without the possibility of him using his will at all. You "neutralize the person," as it is euphemistically said. Or take sexual violence in the same way, where a person is assaulted against her will. You do not treat that person as a person. You treat that person as a thing. And sin always treats the other person as a thing, not as a person. And the way you treat another person as a thing is to remove or disrespect or violate that person's will.
Did you realize then that sin is always contrary to another person's will, as well as contrary to the will of God? Now when you realize this, you realize that sin, as I have just mentioned, never treats another person as a person. And it follows then, when you turn it around, it means that righteousness always treats another person as a person. It always respects the other person as a person. It never violates another person's will. It never tramples on another person. It never reduces another person to a thing.
And this also means that God never acts in that way. He never tramples us underfoot. He does not reduce us to a thing. But he always treats us as a person. Human beings may treat us as a thing, but God never. If you go into a government office, you seem to be depersonalized. You become just a number. Number 523. You say, "Oh, that's me." You come forward. You are not a person. You are just a number on a card. And it stuffs you through a computer. You come out — number so and so, case number 53. And you turn out to be case 53. So okay, you are just reduced always to things. For convenience's sake, or for any other sake, it doesn't matter. You are just a thing.
It's very interesting how human beings are always trying to reduce others to things. You go into an army, and you notice something interesting. Have you ever noticed that almost every policeman looks like every other policeman? Funny. They all look alike. Why? Because they have all purposely been depersonalized. If a policeman in England tries to grow a mustache, he really runs into trouble with the authority, because he is trying to become personal again. You are not supposed to grow any mustache. You must look like every other guy. Every guy is clean-shaven in this way. Haircut at this level. Everybody with the hat in the same position. Everybody the same uniform. The only difference is the difference of number, to distinguish one thing from the other thing. And so the world wants to depersonalize you. When you go into the army, they treat you as a thing. You are shouted at. You are booted at. You are told to line up. Go here, go there. You don't talk. You don't answer. You just say "yes." Your will doesn't count. Only the will of your commanding officer. And in the end, his will doesn't count either. It's only the supreme command's will that counts. So everything is aimed at depersonalizing you. Interesting, isn't it? Very curious. That's how the world operates. But God never does that. He wants you to be you.
And this has a very serious implication for the whole question of guidance, as well as for every other department of Christian life that we have no time to develop now, which I'll leave you to think through. You see, we are so brainwashed in being depersonalized that we think it's the normal thing to do. The best kind of a Christian is the depersonalized Christian who behaves in a robot-like, tape-recorder fashion. That's the finest Christian. He is called the "Spirit-controlled" Christian. You see, he never makes up his mind to do anything. He only waits on God to do everything. He never says yes until God says yes. And the question is: when does God say yes?
I have a dear friend, and I invite him to come to my place. And he says, "Yes. Yes, sure. When the Lord allows me to come." The thing is this: he is never going to tell you whether he's coming or not. You say, "Why?" Because he's waiting on the Lord's leading. And the Lord's leading, in his case, seems to mean that he only knows five minutes before he comes. And this makes an arrangement for him to preach virtually impossible. I mean, I've got to stand by ready with a message, if at any time I invite this dear brother to preach. Because for all you know, five minutes before the meeting, he doesn't turn up. Why? Because, well, as far as he knows, the Lord wanted him to stay back somewhere else. This is most exasperating. Well, mostly, of course, he does turn up. But you always have to be sure that in ten percent of the instances he might not turn up. So you've got to be ready with somebody else, really.
Now you imagine inviting somebody like this to come to a conference, because he's not going to tell you whether he's coming to the conference or not. And you invite him eight months ahead, and he says, "Oh no, no, I won't know until five minutes before the conference." You see. Now many people think that that's the idea of a Christian. He never makes up his own mind. He never makes any decisions. He never knows whether he's going to go to a meal or not, or whether he's going to go to a meeting or not. My oh my. If you call that a Spirit-guided Christian, you've really missed the point.
And sometimes you try to help these people, but they feel that they are so super-spiritual, that they are so completely "Spirit-controlled," that, well, they have ceased to exercise their own will at all. Now you see, they mean well. But they are ignorant of the word of God. The word of God does not tell us that super-Christians are Christians who have ceased to exercise their will. That having "died to self" does not mean that you have no more will. It means dying to sin, to the old way of life. Your whole mind, your whole will is renewed, regenerated. Oh, there are so many things to understand in the Christian life. And every misunderstanding is like stepping on a minefield. It will destroy you spiritually.
So here then we must understand the importance of all this for prayer. That God wants us to exercise our will in prayer. It must be my desire for this particular thing, and not that I am so "Spirit-filled," so called, that now I have no desire whatsoever. In this case, of course, I don't need to pray for anything. I am so Spirit-filled now that whatever God wants to give me is fine. I don't need to pray for anything. And that means to say you become so Spirit-filled that you don't have to pray anymore, because you have no needs. You don't care if you have any needs or not. And that's it. "I don't mind if I starve to death, for that matter. If my family starves to death, or my children starve to death. But this doesn't matter anymore. Because God knows my needs. He'll meet my needs. And if he doesn't meet my needs, it's his will that I should starve to death." It's pathetic. But it's so true sometimes in the Christian life, when you see the wrong conclusions that people come to.
In the Bible, I do not read about the "control" of the Spirit in the sense that we have ceased to exercise our will. I ask you to show me one verse in the Bible — just one verse, please — that says that we are controlled by the Spirit of God in the sense that we have ceased to exercise our will. Show me, please, one verse. Anywhere you can quote. But I do read in the Bible about the fellowship of the Spirit. Oh yes. I read a lot about the fellowship of the Spirit. "The love of God, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the fellowship of the Spirit." What does it mean? You can only have fellowship if two people have a communion and fellowship of will. If I cease to be a person, you can't have fellowship with me. I have no will. I have nothing to respond to. Anything you say is "yes, okay, fine, good." How do you have fellowship with a person like that?
Say, "Do you want to go out?" "I don't mind." "You want to eat now?" "It's okay." I think after a little while of this, you'll be so fed up. How are you going to have fellowship? I mean, tell me. I'm asking you because I'd like to know. "Do you want to have a walk?" "Oh, it doesn't matter to me." So the next time, all you do is just take him by the hand and just walk out. Push him to a table and he eats. You can't have fellowship with a person like this. Fellowship means that that is a person. You don't have fellowship with a thing. I don't have fellowship with my coat. I mean, it goes where I want it to go. It doesn't ask any questions. I only have fellowship with a person when he exercises his will. I say, "Do you like to eat?" He says, "Oh, I would like that." Ah, that's an answer. Not to say, "I don't mind." "I would like that. I enjoy that. Oh sure." Then we have a great time together.
Why do we think that God wants robots? When God says to you, "Do you want to go out today and go to that place?" "I don't mind." Okay. You say, "No, I enjoy it." "No, it's sure. You want me to go? Amen. Here I go." That's great. "I really love to do it." That's something different from saying "I don't mind," isn't it? Because the one has exercised the will. The other has exercised no will. That's the big difference.
Many people think that the best kind of Christian is one who has become like a machine. Whatever you want to do with him, you can do. You keep pushing him, and he keeps going. He never says what he wants. He never exercises his own will. That's the best Christian. But this is not what the Bible teaches.
God does not treat us as machines. He does not treat us as things. The usual understanding of "God's control" turns us into machines — with no thoughts of our own, no feelings of our own, just things. This is not what happens. But what the Bible tells us is this: God treats us as his children. Why would you want a child who is like a thing — can't smile, can't say anything, just sits there? What do you want a child like that for? I could buy a machine instead. So God would never treat us this way.
The Bible does not speak of God's "control" — rather, it speaks of God's fellowship. The fellowship of the Holy Spirit. This is what we see in the last verse of 2 Corinthians: "The fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all." The Spirit has fellowship with us. Fellowship only exists between persons. I cannot have fellowship with my car. I cannot have fellowship with my chair. I cannot have fellowship with my desk. Fellowship is only with persons — where one has a will and the other has a will, and there is harmonious communion between the two. That is what constitutes fellowship. The Holy Spirit comes into our hearts not to turn us into machines and control us, but to have fellowship with us. How wonderful this is!
Please remember, brothers and sisters: God always wants us to exercise our own will in prayer, because he treats us as persons, not as things. But conversely, we see in the Bible that every sin treats another person as a thing. Have you noticed? Not treating them as a person, not allowing them to exercise their own will. For example, a robber pulls out a gun and robs you of your money. He doesn't care whether you want to give it or not, what your will is, what your feelings are. He doesn't care. He wants your money, so he takes it. He treats you as a thing — something he can use. He doesn't treat you as a person. He pulls out a gun precisely to suppress your will so that you cannot exercise it. This is the nature of sin. So whatever kind of sin it is, it is the same. Even the sin of rape — you don't care how the other person feels. You treat them as a thing to be used. You want something, and you don't care whether they want it or not. You just take it. This is the nature of sin.
But the nature of righteousness is completely the opposite. It never treats another as a thing, but always as a person — with their own will, respecting that will. When we understand this truth, we know why we need to pray. God doesn't just throw things at us whether we want them or not. Nor does he treat us as things — he doesn't force things on us regardless of whether we want to receive them. Unless we give our hearts to him, he will not take them by force. Unless we are willing to the point of praying, "May your will be done in my life, as it is in heaven" — he waits for us to exercise our will to ask him. He will not violently snatch us, or force upon us things we don't want. We must clearly understand that this is the importance of prayer. He waits for us to say, "May your will be done on earth" — and that includes my life. For what is the earth if not my life? It would be hypocrisy to say, "May your will be done on earth," but not in my life. "May your will be done on earth" — done in my life, as it is in heaven.
Our time is far gone, and there is still much richness here, but we must stop here for today.