Jesus said:
“God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must
worship in spirit and truth.”
الله روح. والذين يسجدون له فبالروح والحق ينبغي ان يسجدوا.
John 4:24
Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father
except through me.
فَأَجَابَهُ يَسُوعُ: «أَنَا هُوَ الطَّرِيقُ وَالْحَقُّ وَالْحَيَاةُ. لَا يَأْتِي أَحَدٌ إِلَى الآبِ إِلّا بِي.
John 14:6
God The Father is Spirit and is omnipresent, meaning
He is present everywhere. The nature of God is an eternal, immense and infinite
Spirit. God is the creator of all spirits. Only The
Trinity (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) is omnipresent, we can pray to The
Trinity from anywhere across the globe.
Jesus is the only mediator between us and
God.
For there is one God and one mediator
between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus
اللهُ وَاحِدٌ، وَالوَسِيطُ بَيْنَ اللهِ وَالنَّاسِ وَاحِدٌ هُوَ الإنْسَانُ يَسُوعُ المَسِيحُ.
1 Timothy 2:5
Jesus tells us that we should pray in His name to The Father.
Very truly I tell you, my Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. 24 Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete.
الْحَقَّ الْحَقَّ أَقُولُ لَكُمْ: إِنَّ الآبَ سَيُعْطِيكُمْ كُلَّ مَا تَطْلُبُونَ مِنْهُ بِاسْمِي. 24 حَتَّى الآنَ لَمْ تَطْلُبُوا بِاسْمِي شَيْئاً. اطْلُبُوا تَنَالُوا، فَيَكُونَ فَرَحُكُمْ كَامِلاً.
John 16:23-24
We should pray to the Father in the name
of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
Many people are praying to so called “saints” that some churches canonized or declared as “saints”. They may pray to them or ask for their mediation. No where does the Bible say that any of these many “saints” that the churches have proclaimed are omnipresent. If they are not omnipresent, they cannot hear prayers across the globe. I believe these so called “saints” advanced God’s Kingdom while they were alive and helped other people, but they are now dead people and cannot hear prayers at all. We are asked by Jesus to pray in His name. He is the only mediator between us and God. We are asked to pray to Him and nowhere does Jesus say we need a mediator between us and Jesus.
A. Worshipping in Spirit
I believe we would be considered worshipping God in
spirit, when we are guided by The Holy Spirit, and we present our requests to
the throne of God through our mediator Jesus
Christ. Worshipping God must spring from the heart, through the influence of
the Holy Spirit.
This is in accordance with [the terms
of] the eternal purpose which He carried out in Christ Jesus our Lord, 12 in whom we
have boldness and confident access through faith in Him [that is, our faith
gives us sufficient courage to freely and openly approach God through Christ]
Ephesians 3:11-12 AMP
وَفْقاً
لِقَصدِهِ الأزَلِيِّ الَّذِي حَقَّقَهُ فِي المَسِيحِ يَسُوعَ رَبِّنا. فَفِي
المَسِيحِ، وَبِالإيمانِ بِهِ، لَنا امتِيازُ الدُّخُولِ إلَى حَضرَةِ اللهِ
بِجُرأةٍ وَثِقَةٍ.
B. Worshipping in Truth
We would be considered worshipping God in truth when
our worship is guided and regulated by The Word of God.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.
فِي
الْبَدْءِ كَانَ الْكَلِمَةُ، وَالْكَلِمَةُ كَانَ عِنْدَ اللهِ. وَكَانَ
الْكَلِمَةُ اللهُ. 2 هَذَا كَانَ فِي الْبَدْءِ عِنْدَ
اللهِ. 3 بِهِ تَكَوَّنَ كُلُّ شَيْءٍ، وَبِغَيْرِهِ لَمْ
يَتَكَوَّنْ أَيُّ شَيْءٍ مِمَّا تَكَوَّنَ. 4 فِيهِ كَانَتِ
الْحَيَاةُ. وَالْحَيَاةُ كَانَتِ نُورَ النَّاسِ.
John 1:1-4
I invite you to repeat the following prayer for yourself:
Abba Father, thank You for the riches of Your grace upon my life. LORD, I pray that out of Your glorious riches You
strengthen me with power through Your Spirit in my inner being, so that I may worship You in spirit
and in truth. Let all my prayers Lord be guided by The Holy Spirit and by Your
Word. Thank You God that I can present my
prayers to Your throne of grace with boldness and confidence
through faith in Your only begotten Son, my Lord, and Saviour Jesus Christ. To Jesus be the power, the glory,
the majesty, the blessings, and the dominion before all time and now and
forevermore. Amen.
Jesus loves you,
In Him,
Wagdi Henein
Amen 🙏 🙏 🙏
ReplyDeleteWhen Jesus spoke with Moses and Elijah during the Transfiguration, when David asked the angels of heaven to bless the Lord, this is not offensive to God (Ps.103:20–21). After all, those in heaven are “like the angels,” and are more alive than we are, since the Lord is “not God of the dead, but of the living” (Luke 20:36–38). Therefore the departed saints are still part of the body of Christ. All Christians believed this until the reformation. The departed saints are made perfect in love therefore they must pray for us and we for them because this is the most perfect expression of love.
ReplyDeleteif Christians should not ask those in heaven for their prayers since we can go straight to Jesus, then no Christian on earth should ask a fellow believer for his prayers. When one believer asks another for his prayers, it is not because God is too distant or callous to listen to him. On the contrary, God is so generous he has given the body of Christ such unity that each member can pray for the others. This is a great gift, for “the prayer of a righteous man has great power in its effects” (Jas. 5:16), and the angels and saints in heaven are inarguably righteous.
Though the Bible tells us that we must go to God in our necessities, it also encourages us to ask for each other’s prayers. After all, salvation is a family affair. Can the eye say to the hand, “I need you not?” Neither should we say that we don’t need the prayers of the rest of the body of Christ (on earth or in heaven).
ReplyDeleteImmediately after requesting that we pray for each other in 1 Timothy 2:1–4, Paul affirms that Christ is the one mediator. Again, let us define our terms. A mediator is one who comes between two parties with the purpose of uniting them. Christ played a role of mediation that only the God-man could, but Christians are still called to serve as mediators between Christ and the world. In no way does this diminish the unique work of Christ. On the contrary, it manifests it.
For example, Christ is our only high priest, but we are all called to be a nation of priests (1 Pet. 2:9). Christ is the only Son of God, yet we are made sons of God through adoption (Gal. 3:4). The Christian life consists in being conformed to Christ, and as Paul says, being “God’s fellow-workers” (1 Cor. 3:9) in his plan of salvation.
To think of those in heaven as unwilling or unable to pray for us is to have a grave misconception of heaven. It is not an isolated part of the body of Christ that exists without concern for the other members of the body who are still working out their salvation with fear and trembling (Phil. 2:12). Those in heaven surround us as a “great cloud of witnesses” (Heb. 12:1), and the book of Revelation teaches that the prayers they offer for us “saints” is an integral part of the eternal worship given to God.
John describes the heavenly worship in these terms: “The twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each holding a harp, and with golden bowls of incense, which are the prayers of the saints” (Rev. 5:8). The angels also play a role in bringing our prayers to God: “The smoke of the incense rose with the prayers of the saints from the hand of the angel before God” (Rev. 8:4). If intercession among members of the body of Christ on earth is “good and it is acceptable in the sight of God our Savior” (1 Tim. 2:1–4), how would such behavior not also be pleasing to God in heaven?
Along with the concern about the “worshiping of saints” by praying to them, the question of their ability to hear us is among the most frequent of Protestant concerns. The book of Revelation is especially helpful in dealing with this, since it describes people in heaven who are aware of the happenings on earth (Rev. 6:11; 7:13–14). They have this capacity according to God’s designs and not of their own power. Paul alluded to this when he said, “Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood” (1 Cor. 13:12).
Those in heaven are part of the mystical body of Christ, and have not been separated from us by death. Christ is the vine, and we are the branches. So, if we are connected to him, we are inseparably bound together with them as well. Thus, the angels and saints stand before the throne of God, offer our prayers to him, and cheer us on as we run the good race.
If those in heaven are of no help to us, is it that they do not care, or does God forbid them to know of our toil and render them incapable of praying for us?
The reason the Protestant reformers started to teach that the departed are "dead" is that they were combatting the false teaching of purgatory and indulgences in the Catholic Church. You cannot correct a false teaching by creating another false teaching but you must return to the pure Orthodox understanding of the faith as "taught by Christ, preached by the Apostles and preserved by the father's" as St Athanasius of Alexandria said.
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