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Wholly...Holy


Then a teacher of the law came to him and said, “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.”
Jesus replied, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”
Another disciple said to him, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.”
But Jesus told him, “Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead.” (Matthew 8:19-22)

          Jesus replied: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matthew 22:37-39a) 

          But
          I have been told that whenever you say “but” you are telling you audience that everything you just said was a lie.
          This morning’s reading about prayer deals with holiness. God says that we are to love Him with all our hearts, all our souls, all our minds and all our strengths. Wholly. Not holding anything back. Jesus said that if we love Him, we’ll obey Him. You cannot have divided loyalties and expect God to give you something. That’s like asking your spouse for money to go spend with your boyfriend. You may think it’s being clever, but it doesn’t get much lower. What’s sad is that we may not even realize that’s what we’re doing. 
          I know people who share posts about both God and horoscopes. (“It’s just for fun.”) I know people who claim to be Christians, but they’re living with their boyfriend/girlfriend, or they’re cheating on their spouses. I know that I claim to love God, but when it comes to obeying Him by eating according to how He designed my body to function…. 
          There is grace, but abusing it is not an option. The reality is that we are fallen. The truth is…

 
          So how are we to wholly/holy pray? For what dare we ask that we won’t misuse? Three ideas come to mind. The first is to pray honestly. It’s difficult to be honest with ourselves. I know many of my prayers are for my own comfort. I tell God that if He causes the book I’m writing to be a bestseller, I’ll be able to buy Dad a new place to live in Florida, I’ll be able to give more money to the Church and other worthy causes, etc. Those things are true. Of course, I’ll also have better accommodations, fewer frustrations, more significance, more control…. God knows I want these things,
and they aren’t necessarily bad things to want. Why not be honest? 
         A second idea is to ask for guidance. Ask for guidance about yourself.
Search me, O God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting. (Psalm 139:23-24)
Seek guidance, also, about what you should ask, recognizing that you may misunderstand. Let your prayers sincerely conclude:
yet not my will, but yours be done (Luke 22:42)
          The third idea on keeping our prayer holy/wholly is to pray Scripture. There are promises all through the Bible. There are examples of prayers that were granted, and prayers that were not granted. When I intercede, unless someone has provided a specific request, I often use the fruit of the Spirit, pairing the next person on the list with the next fruit on the list, or, I lift up my own prayer of “WDA” for them. 
       To all of this, I add what Mr. Bounds said: to pray with you all your mind, all your wits, all your heart, all your will, all your emotions, all your body, all your spirit…to be whole in your prayers. This is something I need to consider further and implement.

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