Have you considered that Jesus always and only prayed to his Father? Also, he taught us to pray—not to Moses or Mary, not to the Holy Spirit or even Jesus. . . in fact—not to any saint or even any other member of the trinity! Jesus points us to the one and only God who is our Father. OUR Father. When we need something, Jesus tells us to go straight to the top! No need to ask our boss to ask his boss to ask her boss to ask their boss. God’s Son—our “boss” (in that He’s our Lord/Master and Savior)— instructs us to go straight to His Father when we pray. No detours needed! “Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:16). We have been given direct access to the one and only, all-powerful, all-loving, all-wise Father. Can you believe it?!
We are taught in 1 Timothy 2:5 that there is only “one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” This Jesus is our one and only mediator (there are no others), and he “is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them” (Hebrews 7:25). Jesus is able to save all who come to God by him, and he makes intercession for us, but he teaches us to pray directly to God, not to any other mediator or intercessor, not even himself!
The Holy Spirit intercedes for us too: “Likewise the Spirit also helps our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. And he that searches the hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because he makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God” (Romans 8:26-27). The Holy Spirit, which dwells within the heart of every believer, takes our prayers and translates them into requests that perfectly mirror the will of God, so that even if we don’t know what to ask—or how to ask it—the longings of our heart are heard, blended and purified by the Holy Spirit like incense burning on the altar of our hearts, and ascend heavenward as a sweet aroma pleasing to God (see Leviticus 3:5).
Therefore, we have no need for any other help. As a parent, I would feel hurt if one of my children asked one of my other children to approach me for a favor. Wouldn’t you? Years ago, two of my sons were both pre-med students at the same time. One day, the younger of them came to me rather tentatively and said, “Mom, X (his older brother) doesn’t want to become a doctor like Dad.”
“That’s okay!” I reassured him. “He can be whatever he wants to be. He doesn’t have to become a doctor if he’d rather be something else.”
My son was quiet for a few seconds, considering my response. “Mom?”
I looked again.
“I don’t want to be a doctor either.”
They were afraid of disappointing their father, and so they came to me, but I knew Alan would be more pleased by his sons pursuing their God-given passions than becoming clones of him! They didn’t need me to mediate for them!
Why do some people pray to Mary or some other saint? Are they afraid God doesn’t love them enough to answer their prayers? How sad, because God loves them more than Mary or Saint Patrick . . . or any saint who’s ever lived! Do people pray to saints because they feel they aren’t worthy of God’s ear? What a heartbreak that must be for God! Jesus died to make us worthy; isn’t that enough? When Jesus died on the cross, the veil in the temple was torn open—from the top to the bottom (Matthew 27:51). God tore that curtain, opening the way for all who believe to enjoy complete access to intimacy and communion with God, our Father!
There is no one—human or divine—who loves us as completely and passionately as our Father loves us! It must grieve His heart to see us believing He could be persuaded to answer the same prayer asked by some more meritorious personage. Either a prayer is good, or it is not. If it is good, then won’t our good Father give us what we request? Remember Jesus’s admonition in Matthew 7:1-11? He tells us to ask our Father expectantly, because “if you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?”
Finally, Jesus tells us to ask in His name, not in the name of any other. Jesus is the perfect Son of God. No one else compares. No one else is as worthy. We are saved by Jesus and come to the Father in the name of Jesus. “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). There is no other name by which we can be saved. There is no saint or demigod who can answer our prayers and deliver us, and there is no human being in whose name we can pray to earn merit, except the precious name of Jesus, who is God incarnate. Let God be God alone.
Why was Daniel cast into the den of lions? Because he refused to pray to anyone but God! Shouldn’t we do the same?
“Whosoever shall ask a petition of any God or man for thirty days, save of thee, O king, he shall be cast into the den of lions. Now, O king, establish the decree, and sign the writing, that it be not changed, according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which alters not. Wherefore king Darius signed the writing and the decree. Now when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went into his house; and his windows being open in his chamber toward Jerusalem, he kneeled upon his knees three times a day, and prayed, and gave thanks before his God, as he did aforetime” (Daniel 6:7-10).
Summer Setting 