Pray Like It's on Him, Work Like It's on Him, Too!

I watched Healed by Grace the other night. It was a movie about a girl who gets injured in a car wreck, has her dreams of being a dancer crushed, but find outs God had other plans for her. It was a pretty good movie (but this isn't a movie review). During one scene, the chorus of the song playing in the background said something like, "Pray like it's on him, work like it's on you."

The words resonated with me. Too often Christians are afraid means. I'm not talking about mean people, but the instrument or method used to obtain an end. We forget that God in his sovereign wisdom not only ordains ends (what's going to happen), but the means (ways) in which they come about. Without straying too far off course let me say, that God does not cause sin, nor can he sin (there is a much larger conversation to be had at this point, but I will save it for another post). My point about means is that when God calls us to pray, it is because he means it to bring about its purpose.

The expression, "pray like it's on you, work like it's on him," captures the responsibility of the believer to appropriate God's means in order to bring about God's purposes. There is another expression I have heard frequently, "Put legs to your prayers." It means we have to do more than pray. For example, if you have a friend who is an unbeliever, it is right and good to pray for them to come to faith. However, they still need the hear the message of Christ, if they are to believe. Paul said, "How can they believe in one of whom they have never heard?" So praying for the unbeliever is good (and necessary), but we must also tell them about Jesus.

Many believers today have come to believe that effort is a sign of weak faith. One might reason, if I have to work at it, I don't really believe. While in some cases, such reasoning may be true, it is clearly false in the vast majority of cases. Throughout the Bible the natural life is used as an analog for the Christian life. What I mean is that Paul and other can talk about believers as infants, children, young men (and women), and elders. Life, whether physical or spiritual, is a maturing process. In life, there is always effort being exerted.

People who are waiting for the Lord to make things happen in their life need to carefully consider if they are using the appropriate means that God appointed. Praying for clean clothes might work for a family that lost everything in a house fire or a homeless person because they have no other means to get those things. But a person who has the means to have cleans cloths (cloths, washer, detergent, water, etc.), shouldn't expect God to do their laundry for them.

Often times believers feel frustrated with the lack of growth in their spiritual life, but fail to make the connection between their lack of Bible study, meditation, prayer, and worship. True, even the most devout experience spiritual dryness at times. But most frequently, when our spirits grow cold it is because we have turned away from the all-consuming fire, that is our God (Heb. 12:29). If we were to use God's appointed means of worship, study, prayer, fellowship, etc., we would discover our lives rekindled and our maturity increasing.

Effort should be expected in the Christian life. God has been driving home the truth of Philippians 2:12-13 to me in recent months. Paul states, "Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure" (Phil. 2:12-13). These verses teach us  at least two things two things: God expects us to work and he grants us what we need to get the work done.

While the quote, "Pray like it's on him, work like it's on you," offers us a glimpse of our responsibility, it might be better for us to say, "Pray like it's on him, work like it's on him." Paul demonstrates this pattern in several places. "I can do all things through him who strengthens me" (Phil. 4:13). "For this [to present everyone mature in Christ] I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me" (Col. 1:29). "Such is the confidence we have through Christ toward God. Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God, who has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life" (2 Cor. 3:4-6).

You might be tempted to think (or say), "If it is all up to God, then why do I need to do anything?" The short answer is because that is what God said to do. For a longer answer, consider what I've said about means and ends. If we don't use God's appointed means, we cannot achieve God's appointed end. I am not implying that we can somehow stop God's plan. As Mordecai reminded Esther, "For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father's house will perish. And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this"(Esther 4:14).

So, pray hard. God delights in answering the prayers of his people, and has appointed them to pray so that he might display his grace in answering them. And work hard, but not in your strength alone. None of us are sufficient in our own strength, but God's grace is sufficient for us. As you labor, remember that you do not toil alone, for God is at work in you to will and work for his good pleasure. In the end, we need to "Pray like it's on him, and work like it's one him," too!