Small Faith--Great God by N. T. Wright

Author:N. T. Wright
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Spirituality
ISBN: 9780830868186
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
Published: 1978-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

That is why, in the middle of Matthew 6, we find the Lord's Prayer. It is God-centered, as all praying and living should be. It emphasizes our weakness, our dependence on God and our constant and daily need for forgiveness. I haven't space to develop this here, and in any case it is more something that we should all develop by doing it, not by talking or writing about it. I think we need to rediscover the Lord's Prayer, to take it out of its over-familiarity and actually use it as the foundation of all our praying. And in the context of hypocrisy it is exactly what we need. No one who prays this prayer day by day, and means it, is in any real danger of the Pharisees' pride. All who begin the day with it will go on their way knowing they are forgiven sinners, knowing their Father to be a loving and holy God. People like this have no need to put on a show before others. They live under the eye of God, who has already accepted them as his children and who, because he wants the best for them, also wants the best from them.

If that means that from time to time we feel as though we are "putting it on," and we have to obey God even though we would much rather do something else, then we have got good precedent for it. Jesus himself learned obedience by the things he suffered. And Jesus was no hypocrite. It is his life that God calls us to "put on," and, what is more, it is his Spirit who is given to enable us to know his will and do it, even if we still don't feel like it. (There are some who talk as if the Spirit's purpose was to make us feel like obeying God, but the Spirit is given to make us holy human beings, not satisfied animals.)

The whole thing therefore comes back to the basic principles of all Christian truth and all Christian living. Live your life under the eye of your loving Father. Struggle to obey him by the power of his Spirit. Model yourself on his incarnate Son, who himself fought with temptation, did things he didn't feel like doing (remember Gethsemane), and now sits at God's right hand, still clothed in our flesh and now triumphant. This path leaves no room for the hypocrisy of the Pharisee. It is only wide enough for those who do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with their God.

An old prayer sums all this up.

O God, forasmuch as without thee we are not able to please thee, mercifully grant that thy Holy Spirit may in all things direct and rule our hearts: through Jesus Christ, thy Son, our Lord. Amen.

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