The following is an excerpt taken from Prayer PathWay, currently 50% off from Westminster Bookstore.
the path of redeMptIon
The fact that you’re opening a book on prayer could mean that you already pray and are looking for some fresh encouragement; or that you want to pray and are seeking motivation; or that you want to want to pray (which, in itself, reveals a desire to pray!) and are searching for inspiration. Or it could mean that someone who loves you gave you this book because he or she wants you to pray, so you’re giving it a try. In any case, welcome! I hope you’ll join me on the path of prayer.
From an earthly perspective, a life of faith begins with prayer—and is sustained by prayer. Some Christians can remember the exac
t date of their first authentic prayer of faith—the day of their conversion. Others don’t remember but have heard people (usually their parents) recount those first steps of faith. Others don’t remember not being in faith; their memory is of always being in Christ. Any of those stories can reflect saving and authentic conversion, because our conversion is simply our seeing our need and God’s meeting it.
Of course, none of us knows when his or her redemption really began because none of us was there! Our redemption began in the mind of God before creation. He made a plan. His Son was born to make it happen. Jesus walked our path of redemption right to the cross and has gone ahead of us into eternity. He is the Way and the destination. He is the path—and He is the prize!
My plea to you is this: consider whether you’ve been redeemed by Christ, redeemed from your self-reliance and your self-made plans, saved from your sins, secured for eternity.
If you’re a Christian, you’ll often run to God for needful repentance (we’ll talk about that later in this book). But if you aren’t redeemed, that’s the first thing to address. You may not know much about God, but you know about yourself. You know—deep down—that something is wrong. That sense is God drawing you. Listen.
You need what God has. He is what you need.
Your prayer of redemption needs no perfect words, just your acknowledgement of your sin, your awareness of God’s solution, and your desire to surrender to Him.
Ponder these passages and pray your heart out to Him. Confess your sin and ask for forgiveness—and ask for the faith to believe all that God is and the strength to obey all that He asks.
All people are sinners. Sin separates us from God.
Your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear. Isaiah 59:2
God’s love made a plan.
God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:8
For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost. Luke 19:10
In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the [perfect sacrifice] for our sins. 1 John 4:10
God promises to hear you when you call out to Him.
[Jesus says] Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. John 6:47
If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. Romans 10:9–10
Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Romans 10:13
His response to you will be your redemption.
He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. Colossians 1:13–14
You will be new.
If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. 2 Corinthians 5:17
The result: you will have a new heart and the power of the Holy Spirit to cause you to walk in obedience. You will glorify God as you grow in Christ.
I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. Ezekiel 36:26–27
But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen. 2 Peter 3:18
This is redemption:
But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. Ephesians 2:4–10
Your salvation means that God’s great love has redeemed you from your own wandering way and for His higher, holy way. You will have His peace and His purpose.
The Christian’s journey is not on a smooth, flat highway—there are high mountains and deep valleys, bright mornings and dark nights of the soul. This is God’s way to keep us praying—to keep us leaning on Him instead of darting off on our own. It’s His way! It’s the way of glory.
The path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, which shines brighter and brighter until full day. Proverbs 4:18
So now, fellow traveler,
join me on a pathway of prayer.
Excerpt taken from pages 21-24 of Prayer PathWay: Journeying in a Life of Prayer by Kathi Lambrides Westlund, copyright 2016, P&R Publishing.
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