Pensees: “Every sin problem reveals a prayer problem”

“Every sin problem reveals a prayer problem”

~From Reymond’s A New Systematic Theology, p. 973~

In his commentary on John 7:37-39 Calvin says something that most Christians can only read with shame:

That we lie on earth poor and famished and almost destitute of spiritual blessings, while Christ sits in glory at the right hand of the Father, clothed with highest majesty of empire, must be imputed to our slothfulness and the narrowness of our faith.

There can be no question where the blame must be placed for our spiritual poverty. Every sin problem reveals a prayer problem. There is no sin that the Christian will ever commit that could not have been avoided by prayer. Jesus instructed his disciples: “Pray that you enter not into temptation” (Mark 14:38), and he taught his disciples to pray that they would be delivered from temptation and from the evil one (Matt. 6:13; Luke 11:4). James declares: “You do not have, because you do no ask God [dia to me aitesisthai hymas]” (4:2). The preposition, dia, with the aorist infinitive in the accusative case has a causal nuance here and teaches that there is a direct cause (“because you do not ask”) and effect (“yo do not have”) relationship in the matter of receiving the things one needs from God.