Have you ever wondered what prayer would look like when we are in heaven? What about the millennium period of peace? I am thinking that the one practice involved with my prayer time – thanksgiving – will still be an active part of my everyday life.
If you make this offering as a thanksgiving offering to God, you shall present, together with the animal to be sacrificed, an offering of bread made without yeast: either thick loaves made of flour mixed with olive oil or thin cakes brushed with olive oil or cakes made of flour mixed with olive oil. – Leviticus 7:12 GNT
When David was praying for protection from those who were gossiping and slandering him (he compared them to a lion), we know that with the sense of urgency he prayed there would be an equivalent passion for giving thanks.
O Lord, my God, I come to you for protection;
rescue me and save me from all who pursue me,
or else like a lion they will carry me off
where no one can save me,
and there they will tear me to pieces. – Psalm 7:1-2 GNT
“It will be well for us here to remember that this is a description of the danger to which the Psalmist was exposed from slanderous tongues. Verily this is not an overdrawn picture, for the wounds of a sword will heal, but the wounds of the tongue cut deeper than the flesh, and are not soon cured.” – Spurgeon
David knew he was not guilty of the charges made up against him and he knew God would vindicate him. I know that with a sense of humility that comes with matters of salvation, I might accept that wrong against me as some sort of deserved action. That is not true of course, and being thankful for what God has done in my life allows me pray and ask God to step in as a shield.
You are the judge of all people.
Judge in my favor, O Lord;
you know that I am innocent. – Psalm 7:8
Here, in the midst of my failures are my successes in life. An honest person, a follower of Jesus, is more than others can imagine or know. Little do we realize how honest a person must be to pray, urgently, simply and with total sincerity meaning what they are praying for.
For those who say they pray a lot and yet God does not answer, I can only say you may be trusting something else, but not God. There may be some traitor in your soul that is being kept there and carefully fed. Thankfulness can root that out.
“With what confidence would anyone address God as ‘Father’? Who would break forth into such rashness as to claim for himself the honour of a son of God unless we had been adopted as children of grace in Christ? He, while he is the true Son, has of himself been given us as a brother that what he has of his own by nature may become ours by benefit of adoption if we embrace this great blessing with sure faith. Accordingly, John says that power has been given to those who believe in the name of the only-begotten Son of God, that they too may become children of John (John 1:12).” – Calvin