Courtesies of Approaching God in Prayer

BEFORE YOU SPEAK

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The Courtesy of Approaching God in Prayer:

Protocols for Entering the Presence of the King

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"For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome."

— Deuteronomy 10:17

Every kingdom has protocols. The Kingdom of God is no exception.

When an ambassador approaches a head of state, they do not walk in casually, demanding to be heard, speaking whatever is on their mind without regard for the gravity of the occasion. They dress appropriately. They observe protocol. They come with prepared purpose. They enter with the awareness that they are standing before someone whose position, authority, and dignity demand a corresponding level of respect and preparation.

Now consider: if that is the standard for entering the presence of an earthly king — a man who will one day return to dust — what standard should govern our approach to the eternal, omnipotent, holy King of the universe?

Many believers have reduced prayer to a casual conversation — something you do on your way to work, mid-sentence, without preparation, without posture, without any recognition of who it is they are addressing. And then they wonder why their prayers feel empty, why heaven seems silent, why transformation is absent. The problem is often not the content of the prayer. It is the condition of the pray-er.

This document is not about making prayer complicated. It is about making prayer conscious — awakening the believer to the magnitude of what they are doing when they bow their head and open their mouth before the Almighty. There are courtesies that honor the God we approach. And when we honor Him in the approach, we position ourselves to receive everything the approach is designed to release.

A critical question before you read:

Does your prayer life currently reflect the greatness of the God you are approaching? Or have familiarity and religious routine reduced the most sacred act of the believer to something performed without preparation, without reverence, and without expectation? Let this document be the reset.

 

The Foundation

The Privilege of Access

Why It Is Remarkable That We Can Pray at All

Before we examine how to approach God, we must first understand why the approach is possible at all. Because it should not be. Not by natural right. Not by human merit. Not because we have earned it or because our sincerity has elevated us to a level of worthiness. The access we have to the throne of God is entirely, exclusively, and permanently the result of what Jesus Christ accomplished on the cross.

"For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes."

— Deuteronomy 10:17

This is the God we are approaching. Not a tribal deity, not a religious concept, not a philosophical abstraction. The God of gods. The Lord of lords. Mighty. Awesome. The Creator of everything that exists, who holds every atom of the universe in coherence by His word, who is so absolutely holy that the seraphim cover their faces in His presence and cry Holy, holy, holy without ceasing.

That same God — inexplicably, magnificently — invites you into His presence. Hebrews 4:16 calls it "the throne of grace." Not the throne of judgment. The throne of grace. And Hebrews 10:19-20 explains how: through the blood of Jesus, through the new and living way He has consecrated through the veil of His flesh. The veil is torn. The way is open. But never — not for a single moment — should we mistake the openness of the door for an invitation to casualness.

Sonship Is Access — Not Licence

As John 1:12 declares, those who receive Christ have been given the right to become sons of God. This is the believer's greatest privilege. But sonship is not a license to approach the Father carelessly. Every son honors his father. Every son who truly loves his father does not take that relationship for granted. The very intimacy of the relationship is the reason for greater reverence, not less.

Galatians 4:4-7 reveals that the Spirit of the Son in us cries "Abba, Father" — the most intimate address possible. And yet this is the same God who, when Moses asked to see His glory, could only permit Moses to see His back — for no man could see His face and live (Exodus 33:18-23). Intimacy and awe are not opposites in the kingdom of God. They are companions. The deeper your intimacy with God, the deeper your reverence for who He is.

Prayer must begin before you speak:

Before any word is spoken in prayer, there is preparation of the heart. You do not walk into the presence of the eternal God the same way you walk into a room in your own house. You come with intention. You examine your heart. You align your posture — inwardly first, then outwardly. Prayer that honors God begins before the first word is prayed.

Know His Will Before You Ask

One of the most common and most costly errors in prayer is praying contrary to the will of God — not out of rebellion, but out of ignorance. God reigns as King above all, and His will is His final word. To pray against His will is not merely ineffective; it is a waste of sacred time and a misuse of the access that Christ purchased for you.

This is why every believer must invest in knowing the Word of God — because the Word is the primary revelation of the will of God. Praying from ignorance of Scripture is like navigating with no map. The courtesies in this document are not only about how you approach God in the moment of prayer — they include the preparation that happens between prayer sessions, as you study and internalize what God has already said.

"This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us."

— 1 John 5:14

Alignment with God's will is not a restriction on prayer. It is the condition that makes prayer most powerful. Praying according to His will is not praying less boldly — it is praying with the confidence that you are in full agreement with the heart of the One you are addressing.

Prayer That Transforms Is the Measure of Effective Prayer

Here is a diagnostic that every believer should apply regularly: if your prayer life is not transforming you, examine whether you are truly praying. Prayer is not merely the presentation of needs before the Lord. It is an encounter that reshapes the one who prays. Paul states it in 2 Corinthians 3:18: "But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord."

The measure of effective prayer is not whether your circumstances changed. It is whether you changed. Answered prayer in the external sense is wonderful. But the deeper mark of a healthy prayer life is a person who is progressively more conformed to the image of Christ — in character, in thought, in response to difficulty, in treatment of others. If your prayer is not producing transformation, something in the approach needs to be examined.

 

The Courtesies

Seven Courtesies

Protocols for Entering the Presence of the King of Kings

These are not religious traditions invented by man. They are the protocols that Scripture itself establishes for the believer who desires to approach God in a way that honors Him, opens access to His presence, and positions the pray-er to receive what the throne of grace was designed to give. Neglect any one of them and something is lost from the prayer. Honor all of them and the prayer becomes a genuine encounter.

 

Courtesy One  REVERENCE

Acknowledging the Majesty of the One You Are Addressing

Reverence is not a physical posture — though physical posture can express it. Reverence is the interior state of a soul that is genuinely, consciously aware of who it is addressing. It is the difference between a person who bows their head out of habit and a person who bows their head because they are acutely aware that they are standing before the One who created the heavens.

"For thus says the High and Lofty One who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: I dwell in the high and holy place, with him who has a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones."

— Isaiah 57:15

There are two things worth holding simultaneously in this verse: the absolute transcendence of God — He inhabits eternity, His name is Holy, He dwells in the high and holy place — and His deliberate proximity to the humble and contrite. These two realities are not in tension. They are the very essence of why reverence is both right and productive. The God who is infinitely high is also infinitely near — but He is near to a specific kind of person. The humble. The contrite. Not the casual.

Reverence also operates as a spiritual guard. When you approach prayer with a genuine sense of who God is, you are less likely to pray selfishly, less likely to demand rather than seek, less likely to treat the session as a divine errand service. Reverence keeps your prayers properly oriented — toward the King's purposes, not merely your own preferences.

"God is greatly to be feared in the assembly of the saints, and to be had in reverence of all them that are about him."

— Psalm 89:7

The fear of God is not terror — it is reverence. It is the holy trembling that comes from understanding the weight of the Person in whose presence you stand. Proverbs 1:7 calls it the beginning of wisdom. Before prayer produces wisdom, before it produces breakthrough, before it produces transformation — it must begin with the fear of God. That is the starting point of all prayer that is rightly ordered.

What Reverence Produces

Prayer that is properly oriented — toward God's purposes rather than personal agenda. A sensitivity to the holiness of God that guards against presumption and casualness. And the specific proximity that God promises to those who come with a contrite spirit — He revives them. He draws near to them. The reverent pray-er experiences God's nearness in a way the casual pray-er simply does not.

 

Courtesy Two  HUMILITY

The Posture That Opens the Door to Grace

Humility is not self-deprecation. It is not the performance of spiritual smallness. It is accurate self-knowledge — the clear-eyed recognition that everything you have, everything you are, and everything you hope to receive flows entirely from the grace of God and not from your own merit or achievement. In the presence of God, humility is simply honesty.

Pride is the fundamental disorder of the fallen human nature. It was the sin of Satan before the foundation of the world. It was the operating principle behind Adam's disobedience in the garden. And it is the disposition that makes prayer least effective — because pride approaches God as though God is obligated, as though the pray-er has earned a hearing, as though the answer is owed.

"God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble."

— James 4:6

The grammar of that verse is stark. God resists. Not ignores. Not delays response to. Resists — actively sets Himself against the proud. This is sobering in the context of prayer. The proud believer who comes to God expecting to be heard is not merely met with silence. They are met with resistance. And the humble believer who comes to God with no claim of personal worthiness is met with grace — unearned, abundant, actively given.

"Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time."

— 1 Peter 5:6

Peter's exhortation connects humility directly to timing. Humility does not bypass God's timing — it submits to it. The proud believer wants the answer now, on their terms, according to their schedule. The humble believer recognizes that God's timing is always perfect and trusts the "due time" that the mighty hand of God has already calculated. This is not passivity. It is faith operating through humility rather than through demand.

The Humility of Esther Before the King

Esther's approach to the king in Esther 5 is one of the most instructive examples in Scripture of the posture required when approaching a throne. She did not march in. She did not demand access. She fasted for three days. She prepared herself. She stood in the inner court, and the king extended the golden sceptre — his favor was expressed through her preparation and posture, not despite it.

"If I perish, I perish" — that is humility. That is the surrender of personal agenda to divine purpose. That is the posture God honors. And the king's response was not merely to hear her — it was to offer her up to half his kingdom. Humility does not diminish what we receive. It positions us to receive more than we asked.

What Humility Produces

Access to grace that pride permanently closes. An alignment with God's timing that prevents the disappointment of unanswered demands. The kind of posture that God is drawn to revive — for He dwells with the humble and contrite to revive them. And ultimately, exaltation in due season — not because you claimed it, but because God gave it.

 

Courtesy Three  FAITH AND TRUST

The Confidence That God Hears and Will Act

Faith in prayer is not the optimistic feeling that things will work out. It is the settled conviction, rooted in the character and promises of God, that He hears every prayer prayed in His name, that He is good, and that His response — whenever it comes, in whatever form it takes — is the best possible answer to the request presented.

Hebrews 11:6 establishes faith as the non-negotiable foundation of any approach to God: "Without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him." Two elements. Belief in His existence — and belief in His character as a rewarder. Not a distant God who is merely aware of you. A God who responds. Who moves. Who rewards the seeking.

"And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive."

— Matthew 21:22

Jesus does not qualify this promise with a long list of conditions. He states it simply: ask — believe — receive. The obstacle that most often stands between asking and receiving is not God's unwillingness. It is the believer's wavering. James 1:6-7 is unambiguous: the person who asks without faith, who wavers between trust and doubt, "let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord." Not because God is withholding. But because faith is the channel through which God's response travels, and doubt blocks the channel.

"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."

— Hebrews 11:1

Faith is substance. Not feeling. Not wishful thinking. Not the emotional high of a Sunday morning service. It is the actual weight and reality of what God has promised, held in the spirit before it is seen by the eyes. The praying believer who operates in this kind of faith is not praying hopefully. They are praying from a position of settled trust — and that settled trust is what activates the response of God.

Faith That Was Specific — and Was Honored

The Syrophoenician woman in Matthew 15:21-28 demonstrates what specific, persistent, humble faith looks like in prayer. Jesus appeared to deny her request. She pressed through the apparent rejection. She did not allow the seeming silence to be interpreted as indifference. And Jesus' response reveals what He was actually doing — He was testing and surfacing the quality of her faith. When it was surfaced, He honored it completely: "O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt."

Faith that endures the apparent silence, that does not collapse when the answer is delayed, that does not reinterpret God's character in the light of unanswered requests — that is the faith that receives the "even as thou wilt" response. God is looking for that kind of faith. It is rare. And it is honored.

What Faith Produces

The actual receipt of what is asked — according to His will and in His timing. The activation of God's response in ways that doubt permanently prevents. A deepening relationship with God, because faith is trust and trust deepens relationship. And the ability to endure through the period of apparent silence without losing your footing.

 

Courtesy Four  A HEART OF WORSHIP

Prayer Is Not a Transaction — It Is an Offering

One of the most significant corrections needed in modern prayer culture is the recovery of worship as an inseparable companion to petition. Many believers approach prayer purely transactionally — they have a list, they present it, they wait for results. And while petition is entirely legitimate and biblical, prayer that is only petition is prayer that is impoverished. It has not yet engaged with the Person behind the provision.

Worship in prayer is the act of turning your attention from what you need to who God is. It is the moment when the request is set aside — not abandoned, but temporarily quieted — so that the soul can simply adore the One it is addressing. And what happens in that moment is extraordinary: the atmosphere of the prayer changes. What was a transaction becomes an encounter. What was a request becomes a relationship.

"Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name."

— Psalm 100:4

Notice the geography of this verse. There are gates and there are courts. Thanksgiving gets you through the gates. Praise gets you into the courts. The deeper you go into God's presence, the more the language shifts from asking to adoring. The believer who approaches prayer with thanksgiving and praise does not merely knock at the outer gate — they are invited progressively deeper into the inner court of God's presence.

"But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him."

— John 4:23

"The Father seeketh such." This is one of the most astonishing statements in the Gospels. The sovereign, self-sufficient God of the universe is described as seeking — actively looking for — people who will worship Him in spirit and truth. Not in ritual and performance. Not in liturgy without heart. In spirit — the genuine overflow of a transformed inner life — and in truth — anchored in the reality of who God is as revealed in Scripture.

The believer who brings genuine worship into their prayer session is not merely warming up for the main event. They are doing something that moves the heart of God. They are filling the one thing He is described as seeking. And the response of God to sincere worship is not distant or delayed. He inhabits the praises of His people (Psalm 22:3). He shows up where the worship is real.

Worship as the Environment of Revelation

Throughout Scripture, the deepest revelations came in the context of worship. Isaiah's vision of the throne room came in the temple (Isaiah 6:1). John's revelation came while he was in the Spirit on the Lord's day (Revelation 1:10). David received the architectural plans for the temple in the context of his deep devotional life. The worshipping soul is the soul that is positioned to receive what the merely requesting soul cannot access.

Paul and Silas sang praises at midnight in a prison — and the foundations shook, the doors opened, and every chain fell off. Their worship did not merely accompany their deliverance. Their worship was the mechanism of it. Worship is not background music to the real prayer. In many instances, worship is the prayer.

What Worship Produces

Entry into the deeper courts of God's presence — beyond the gates of petition into the courts of encounter. The specific presence of God who inhabits the praises of His people. Revelation that is only accessible in the atmosphere of genuine worship. And the kind of praying that is not merely heard by God but welcomed by Him — because it fulfills the very thing He is seeking.

 

Courtesy Five  BOLDNESS WITH REVERENCE

The Child Who Knows They Are Loved

There is a tension that must be held in prayer — and it must be held, not resolved by eliminating one side of it. Believers are called to approach God with deep reverence and awe, fully conscious of His holiness and majesty. And they are simultaneously called to approach Him with boldness and confidence, fully conscious of their identity as His children and the access purchased by the blood of Jesus.

These are not contradictory postures. They are complementary ones. The reverence without boldness produces a cowering, ineffective prayer life — always approaching God apologetically, never quite believing the access is real. The boldness without reverence produces an arrogant, presumptuous prayer life — demanding rather than asking, claiming rather than trusting. Neither alone honors God or produces fruitful prayer.

"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

The author of Hebrews does not say approach tentatively or approach cautiously. He says come boldly. This boldness is not rooted in our own worthiness — it is rooted in the qualification of our High Priest, Jesus, who has gone before us into the holy place and whose blood has permanently opened the way. Our boldness is not personal arrogance. It is confidence in His qualification. We are bold because He is worthy, and because He has made us children of the God we are approaching.

"In whom we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of him."

— Ephesians 3:12

"By the faith of him" — not by the strength of our faith, but by His faithfulness. The access is not contingent on the quality of our believing. It is established by His finished work. We pray boldly not because we have earned the right to be heard, but because He has purchased it and given it to us as a gift.

What Boldness Is Not

Boldness is not demanding. Boldness does not present ultimatums to God or make prayers conditional on receiving specific outcomes on specific timelines. Boldness is not the loudness of the prayer or the volume of the declarations. Boldness in prayer is the settled confidence to bring whatever is on your heart into the presence of God — without shame, without fear, without the sense that you are bothering Him or that He is too busy or that your need is too small or too large.

The boldest prayer in Scripture is often the quietest. Hannah's prayer was wordless — only her lips moved (1 Samuel 1:13). Jesus' prayer in Gethsemane was not a shout — it was an anguished whisper in a garden at night. The boldness was not in the volume. It was in the complete, unguarded openness of the heart before God.

What Boldness Produces

The full use of the access that Christ purchased. Prayers that are complete — holding nothing back, presenting everything that is on the heart without shame or hesitation. The mercy and grace that the throne of grace was specifically designed to dispense. And a deepening confidence in God's willingness to hear and respond, which itself builds the faith that makes prayer more effective over time.

 

Courtesy Six  A CLEAN HEART

Removing What Blocks the Channel

This is perhaps the most practically urgent of all the courtesies — because it is the one that most directly determines whether a prayer reaches its destination. Sin left unconfessed does not disappear from a prayer. It blocks it. Not because God is punishing the sinner by refusing to listen, but because sin creates a fundamental misalignment between the pray-er and the God being addressed. The channel of communication, which is designed to carry faith and love, becomes obstructed by the presence of something that is the direct opposite of God's nature.

"If I had cherished sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened."

— Psalm 66:18

The word "cherished" is important. The psalmist is not saying that any believer who has ever sinned cannot pray. He is describing the person who holds sin in the heart deliberately — who is aware of it, who does not want to surrender it, who has made peace with its presence. That is the sin that blocks prayer. Not weakness or failure that is honestly brought before God — but sin that is consciously retained and protected.

"Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? or who shall stand in his holy place? He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart; who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully."

— Psalm 24:3-4

Psalm 24 asks the most important question about prayer access: who can stand in God's holy place? The answer has nothing to do with spiritual credentials, years in ministry, or the eloquence of one's prayers. It has everything to do with the condition of hands and heart. Clean hands — right conduct toward others. Pure heart — right condition before God. The qualification for standing in God's presence is not achievement. It is purity.

Confession Is Not Weakness — It Is Access

Many believers resist the discipline of confession because it feels like an admission of failure. They are right that it is an admission — but it is not failure. It is one of the most powerful spiritual acts available to the believer, because it is the act that restores the access that sin obstructed. 1 John 1:9 is one of the most liberating verses in Scripture: "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." Faithful. Just. To forgive. And to cleanse — completely, to the root.

David's prayer in Psalm 51 is the model for what confession looks like when it is genuine. He did not minimize what he had done. He did not qualify it. He brought the full weight of it before God: "I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me." And he asked not merely for forgiveness but for transformation: "Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me." This is confession that does not merely clear the legal record — it requests the inner renovation that prevents the same failure again.

The diagnostic:

Before you begin your next prayer session, pause. Examine your heart. Is there any unconfessed sin? Any bitterness toward another person? Any area where you know what God has said but have chosen to go a different direction? Bring it before Him first. Confession is not a delay to prayer — it is the preparation that makes prayer effective. You cannot enter His courts with unclean hands and expect the fullness of His presence.

James 4:8 links confession to nearness: "Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded." The drawing near to God and the cleansing of the heart are not sequential activities — one happens through the other. As you bring sin to God in honest confession, you are already drawing near. And as God responds with His cleansing, He is already drawing near to you.

What a Clean Heart Produces

The unobstructed channel between the pray-er and God. The confidence of Hebrews 10:22 — the ability to draw near "with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience." The experience of Matthew 5:8 — the pure in heart shall see God. Not merely pray to God. See Him — encounter Him, know Him, experience His presence in a way that impurity permanently prevents.

 

Courtesy Seven  GRATITUDE AND THANKSGIVING

The Disposition That Honors What God Has Already Done

Gratitude is the final courtesy — and it is the one that most accurately reflects the condition of the heart that has genuinely understood grace. A person who is truly grateful for what God has already done will approach Him in prayer differently from a person who comes only with needs. The grateful pray-er acknowledges the history of God's faithfulness before presenting the current request. They are not beginning from zero. They are building on a foundation of remembered goodness.

Philippians 4:6 does not merely permit thanksgiving in prayer — it includes it as a structural component: "Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God." Not prayer first and thanksgiving later, if the answer comes. Thanksgiving accompanies the request. It is part of the posture from which the request is made.

"Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus."

— Philippians 4:6-7

Notice the result in verse 7: the peace of God that passes understanding keeps your heart and mind. The connection is not incidental. Prayer with thanksgiving produces peace. Not prayer alone — prayer saturated with gratitude. The disposition of gratitude reorients the pray-er away from anxiety and toward trust. It says: You have been faithful before. I trust You to be faithful now. And that settled trust is the environment in which God's peace flourishes.

The Leper Who Returned — and the Nine Who Did Not

Luke 17:11-19 records Jesus healing ten lepers in a single encounter. All ten were cleansed. All ten received the miracle. But only one returned to give thanks — and he was a Samaritan, an outsider who had even less social reason to return than the nine. His response was specific: he returned with a loud voice glorifying God, fell on his face at Jesus' feet, and gave thanks.

Jesus' question stops the reader cold: "Were there not ten cleansed? but where are the nine?" And then, to the one who returned, He said something He had not said to the other nine: "Thy faith hath made thee whole." Not just healed — whole. There is a dimension of wholeness available to the grateful heart that is not available to the merely healed but ungrateful one. Gratitude unlocks dimensions of God's blessing that the nine forfeited by their silence.

"In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you."

— 1 Thessalonians 5:18

"In every thing" — not for every thing. God does not ask you to give thanks for cancer, for betrayal, for loss. He asks you to give thanks in those things — because even in the darkness, He is present, He is working, and His faithfulness is not suspended by the difficulty of the season. The believer who can give thanks in every season is the believer who has understood that God's goodness is not determined by circumstances. That understanding is itself a profound form of faith — and it honors God.

What Gratitude Produces

The peace of God that passes understanding — because gratitude reorients the heart away from anxiety and toward trust. Deeper access to God's presence, because thanksgiving is one of the gates into His courts. And the fullness of blessing that the returning leper received and the nine did not — because gratitude positions the heart to receive what ingratitude forfeits.

 

Preparation

Before You Speak

A Heart Examination for Every Prayer Session

The seven courtesies described in this document are not a checklist to be mechanically completed before prayer becomes valid. They are the description of a heart that has grown into genuine, mature relationship with God. But for the believer who is building that maturity, a deliberate pause before prayer — to examine the condition of the heart — is one of the most valuable disciplines you can develop.

Use the following as a regular self-examination before significant prayer sessions. Not as a religious gate through which you must pass to be worthy — but as an honest assessment of the posture from which you are about to approach the throne of grace.

 

✦  Am I approaching with reverence — genuinely aware of the magnitude of who I am addressing?

✦  Am I approaching with humility — with no sense of personal entitlement or demand?

✦  Am I approaching with faith — with the settled conviction that God hears and will respond?

✦  Am I bringing worship — starting with adoration of who God is before presenting what I need?

✦  Am I approaching with the boldness of a beloved child — not cowering in fear or apologizing for coming?

✦  Is my heart clean — is there any unconfessed sin that needs to be brought before God first?

✦  Am I coming with gratitude — acknowledging what God has already done before asking for what I need?

 

If any of these are absent or compromised, do not postpone the prayer. Bring the deficiency itself before God. "Lord, I find it difficult to approach You with reverence today — help me see You as You are." "Lord, I have been approaching You with demands rather than trust — forgive me and renew my faith." The honesty of those prayers is itself a form of the very courtesy you are seeking to develop.

 

 

Approach the Throne Worthy of the Access

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Prayer is not a ritual. It is not a religious obligation. It is not a spiritual performance to be evaluated by its eloquence or its duration. Prayer is a relationship — the most intimate relationship available to a human being: direct access to the Creator and Sustainer of all things, through the blood of His Son, sustained by His Spirit.

The courtesies described in this document are not burdens added to an already demanding spiritual life. They are the natural expressions of a heart that has understood the magnitude of the access it has been given. They are how a redeemed son or daughter enters the presence of a holy Father — not casually, not carelessly, but with the full weight of gratitude for what that access cost.

God desires your heart — not just your words. When your heart is rightly prepared, your words become an offering that heaven receives with pleasure.

And here is the promise that undergirds all of it: He is faithful. The same God before whom we tremble in reverence is the same God who promises to be found by those who seek Him with all their heart (Jeremiah 29:13). The same God who requires purity is the same God who provides the cleansing. The same God who demands humility is the same God who lifts up the humble. The same God who inhabits eternity is the same God who dwells with the contrite and humble spirit to revive them.

He has made the way open. He has purchased the access. He has promised His presence. The only remaining question is the one He has always asked: are you coming? And how are you coming?

 

Come with reverence — for He is holy.

Come with humility — for He gives grace to the humble.

Come with faith — for without it you cannot please Him.

Come with worship — for He seeks those who will worship in spirit and truth.

Come with boldness — for the throne of grace is open to you.

Come with a clean heart — for the pure in heart shall see God.

Come with gratitude — for His mercy endures forever.

 

Come. He is waiting.

✦  ✦  ✦

"The Lord is nigh unto all them that call upon him, to all that call upon him in truth."

— Psalm 145:18

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