Sunday May 1, 2022
What Are You Putting In the Bowl?
In some ways, prayer is incredibly simple. After all, when you pray you simply talk to God. He is your Father in heaven and loves to answer prayers. But the Bible also gives us plenty of direction about prayer. Let’s look at what the Bible says about talking with God.
Prayer is talking to God and having a conversation with God. On the one hand, prayer is intimate. You are communing with your Father, the One who loves you deeply. On the other hand, prayer is holy and sacred. You’re speaking with God Himself, the maker of heaven and earth, the ruler of the universe!
He said to them, “When you pray, say: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come.” (Lk.11:2)
When we pray, we must remember Who we are praying to! Prayer is no small thing. It is not an empty religious ritual where we mindlessly chant words. When we pray, we are coming before the living God, the King of Kings, the one who sustains the universe and keeps it from coming apart at the seams.
- To hallow the name of the Lord requires that the words in which we speak be uttered with reverence. “Holy and reverend is His name” (Psalm 111:9).
- We are never in any manner to treat lightly the titles of God.
- In prayer we enter the audience chamber of the Most High and we should come before Him with holy awe.
- The angels veil their faces in His presence.
- The cherubim and the bright and holy seraphim approach His throne with solemn reverence.
- They sing words like “holy” and “worthy.”
How much more should we–finite, sinful beings–come in a reverent manner before the Lord, our Maker? To have reverence for someone or something means that you revere, or highly respect and honor, that person or thing. Reverence starts in the heart and manifests in the actions. In the Bible, we are frequently instructed to reverence God, which can also be phrased as “honoring” or “fearing.”
Only fear the LORD and serve Him faithfully with all your heart. For consider what great things He has done for you. (1 Sam.12:24)
When we have reverence for God, it manifests in our actions as obedience and praise to Him. The idea of reverence for God started with God. In the Old Testament, God taught the Israelites how to show proper reverence by giving them hundreds of laws related to purity, holiness, and worship (Deut. 5). Sinful humanity does not know how to worship a holy God with reverence and awe, so He spelled it out for us.
Reverence for God is a quality missing in much of what masquerades as Christianity today. Modern Christianity has adopted a “Jesus-is-my-buddy” attitude that grossly downplays the holiness, power, and righteous wrath of the Sovereign Creator.
Reverence does not refer to God as “The Big Guy in the Sky” or “The Man Upstairs.” Even the thief on the cross, after he realized who Jesus was, rebuked the other thief for his irreverence: “Don’t you fear God?” he said to the other thief; then he turned to Jesus and honored Him as the King (Luke 23:40–42). His words were important! But what about our words?
Now when He had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each having a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. (Rev.5:8)
Scripture tells us that our words…our prayers rise as incense before the Lord. We can affect the very aroma of heaven. If that is so, then what are you filling the bowl with? How are you filling the bowl?
God established incense as a part of the sacrificial system in Exodus 30:1–10 when Moses was told to build the altar of incense. The prayers of the saints should be understood to take the role of incense in the temple, which was to offer up a sweet aroma to God and to symbolize prayer. The prayers of the righteous are pleasing to Him. Psalm 141:2 describes this aspect of prayer perfectly:
May my prayer be set before you like incense; may the lifting up of my hands be like the evening sacrifice (Ps.141:2).
Prayer is linked to the incense in the temple in other passages, as well. When Gabriel appears to Zechariah in the temple and tells him that his prayers have been answered, Gabriel is “standing at the right side of the altar of incense.”
So it was, that while he was serving as priest before God in the order of his division, according to the custom of the priesthood, his lot fell to burn incense when he went into the temple of the Lord. And the whole multitude of the people was praying outside at the hour of incense. Then an angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing on the right side of the altar of incense. (Lk.1:8-11)
Who are these prayers of the saints for in Revelation 5:8? They are about everybody and about everything that is consistent with God’s will. If you pray for somebody’s salvation, that prayer is in the bowl. If you pray for the safety and relief of people after a natural disaster, that prayer is in the bowl. If you pray that God would conform you into the image of Jesus Christ, that prayer is in the bowl.
Such prayers are well-pleasing to Him. The golden vessels full of incense are offered to God, who will pronounce the final “Amen!” to the prayers of the saints. So, the question is asked again: what are you filling the bowl with? Are you filling it with doubt and fear? What about flippant requests and careless words? Fill the bowl with prayers of faith and fervency. Fill the bowl with words of adoration. Fill the bowl with good words and humble attitudes. (See WORD WISDOM for a deeper study of fervency)
