Tuesday, 18 September 2018

More on liturgical prayer

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Yesterday we started a discussion on liturgical prayer. Let me offer an analogy. Great songs have been written (would you agree). Some of them have become classics, the truly great songs of the opera or Broadway. It is the same with liturgical prayer. Why should we feel that every time we desire to pray, we have to write an original prayer (song)? Sometimes it is okay to sing (pray) the classics.

As with everything in New Covenant life, we must evaluate liturgy through the "Yeshua lens". We must ask if what we are saying (praying) gives glory to the Son. There is much in the liturgical prayers (especially that taken directly from the Bible) which gives glory to Yeshua.

There is a liturgical prayer every Jewish person prays upon awakening and I'm not going to teach it to you today (some other day, okay). All I'm going to teach you are the first 3 words, Modeh Ani L'fanekha. These words mean "I am thankful before You." The more common expression is, "I give you thanks," or simply "Thank You."

When these words appear in the Amidah (also called the Shemona Esray), the main prayer (silent devotion) in every liturgical service we bow (even if sitting at the time) as we say them (in the Amidah they appear in feminine form).

Psalm 100:4 describes us as being thankful when we "enter His gates." Romans 1:21 describes the ungodly as unthankful. Let's spend 2 minutes (set your timer like I am) to be thankful. Be sure to cover the whole spectrum of our being in offering thanks to God. Two minutes wasn't long enough? Take 2 more, etc.

Shalom.