Letter for September 1987

Dear Friends,

Suppose for a moment that you are in real trouble and you are at your wits end. What will you do? Most people resort to prayer.

The question is - will God hear? Will he answer? The question is not whether God is able to help. We believe he can, for nothing is impossible to God. But will he help? Will he be attentive to our prayer?

To be certain that God will be attentive to our cry to him for help is a most comfortable blessing. Can we be sure? Yes we can! The Apostle Peter, quoting from Psalm 34 says, “For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are attentive to their prayer”. (1 Peter 3:12.)

But who are the righteous? This is the first essential question we need to know the answer to, for in ordinary life, there are differing grades of goodness, and who ís to tell who is good enough and who qualifies to be called righteous?

The Bible tells us that the people who God calls righteous are those he accounts or declares righteous. God sets the standard. God's standard is that we must be as good as Jesus Christ, and because none of us can reach such goodness ourselves, God says he will credit Christ’s goodness to the account of all who humble believe on Jesus as Saviour, and follow him as Lord. An essential part of this faith in Jesus is the real desire to be good like Jesus is good.

The moment we have such believing commitment to Christ we are righteous in God’s view, and God hears our prayers. This is being a Christian. A Christian is one whom God has declared to be righteous on the grounds that God has credited to him or her the righteousness of Jesus. So a real Christian, and only a real Christian, knows that when they are in trouble God hears them.

But although God always is attentive to the cry of a Christian, his response is not always straight forward. Peter is speaking to Christians in his letter and the verses before this 12th verse of chapter 3 show that God expects those he declares to be righteous to seek to be more righteous day by day.

The interesting thing is that Peter speaks most of treating others with kindness and forgivingness. This is very important and quite crucial. If we have experienced God saying to us - I will blot out all your sins, remember them no more, and credit you with the same righteousness that Jesus has, we have experienced wonderful and overwhelming kindness from God. This will inevitably make us feel humble and

forgiving in our turn. The one who is not humbled by God's grace, and is not kind and forgiving to others, can’t claim that God has shown forgiving love to them. They can t say, either, that God is attentive to their prayer.

The one who is righteous in God’s eyes is, therefore, one who shows he has received and felt God’s forgiving love, by being loving and forgiving and accepting of other people. These are the people who experience the hearing and answering of their prayers.

Praying is never a waste of time, but we can’t be sure we will be heard unless we are righteous in the way I have described above; but if we are, then God truly is our refuge and strength, and a very present help in trouble.

Your servant for Christ’s sake,