It’s a pretty big deal to be able to talk with the God who created everything. After all, He’s all-powerful, all-present, and all-knowing.
At my company, it’s relatively rare that I get a chance to talk with the CEO (even though he works in the same building…just on another floor and in a nicer office!). My chances of talking with the mayor of my city are even lower. The odds (for most of us) of having a private audience with the governor of our state, or the president of our country, is pretty slim. In general, we are used to the idea that “important” people (as they are defined in our society) are too busy to be troubled with “ordinary people”, and there’s just not enough of the former to go around.
God offers us the opposite, though. In all of His greatness, He chooses to seek the opportunity to talk with us, and to have us talk with Him. This doesn’t come automatically, though – there’s a couple of problems. For one thing, when we chose to sin, we separated ourselves from God (who is holy, and has no sin). For another thing, our powers of communications are, well, limited.
Neither of these challenges was a surprise to God, though. He personally stepped in and addressed both for us:
- Our relationship, broken by our sin, was restored through Jesus’ payment. He took our punishment on Himself, and gave us the ability to once again have a relationship with God, with our sin already paid for. I John 2 calls Jesus an “advocate” – someone who speaks on our behalf – and then explains how He is also the payment for our sins.
My dear children, I am writing this to you so that you will not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate who pleads our case before the Father. He is Jesus Christ, the one who is truly righteous. He himself is the sacrifice that atones for our sins—and not only our sins but the sins of all the world.
1 John 2:1-2 NLT
- Our inability to communicate what we feel (can you relate?) is addressed by God’s omniscience – that is, the fact that He knows everything. Romans 8 says that God’s Spirit knows what we feel, and translates that on our behalf. Sometimes, a prayer is more of a cry out to God than a neat, well-structured discourse.
And the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness. For example, we don’t know what God wants us to pray for. But the Holy Spirit prays for us with groanings that cannot be expressed in words. And the Father who knows all hearts knows what the Spirit is saying, for the Spirit pleads for us believers in harmony with God’s own will.
Romans 8:26-27 NLT
So, the next time you want to talk with God, take a moment to appreciate that, as big of a deal as it is for us to talk with Him, He was the one to make it possible. He wants us to talk with Him, and the least we can do is to accept the opportunity that He gave us to do so.
A version of this devotion originally appeared at http://fcccanton.com/why-can-we-pray-to-god/ as a Study Guide. Reprinted here by permission.
Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright ©1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, a Division of Tyndale House Ministries, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Those Who Sin Differently 
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