Prayer is a personal learning experience that becomes the art of living. I learned mine from my mother and grandmother. It has served me over eighty-four years. During that time, I have been exposed to painters, poets and writers that have turned prayer into an art. As a pastor, I did practice the art and felt myself wanting. In my public prayers, I was telling the all-knowing Lord what He should be about; when in reality, it was about what I should be about. Since my retirement from the pastorate, I feel more at home with the short form Jesus taught His disciples. Jesus, Himself, urged all men to pray and Jesus revealed very little what they should pray about. We shall mention some of the things while we travel together and I try to retrace my journey.

Prayer goes hand in hand with our desire, our needs, our wants and wishes. It grows out of our aspirations, our circumstances, our experience, our predicaments and a host of things we encounter. No one lives without prayer; regardless, of what one believes. We need and expect things and therefore hope, and we even believe that we can ourselves, or someone else shall assist us, in answering our prayers. Ultimately, we do answer each others' prayers out of human compassion and decency. We may have to do a little begging, seeking and knocking before persistence pays off; for, human beings are not heartless, even the godless (Lk. 11:1-13).

We live in a fallen and sinful world. It is made up of matter and matter deteriorates. Let me repeat what I wrote in my Preamble. The cosmos is aging and fallen beings and spirits are also managing it. Man is not the only one that fell out of grace, so did the devil and his angels. He and his companions landed on earth and have created havoc ever since. They sow the weeds, shake the mountains, disturb the seas, destroy the landscapes and blame the Creator for their evil handiwork. They have convinced the creature man that God is punishing man for disobeying God. God is good and merciful and is not willing that anyone should perish (II Pe. 3:9). Man without God and without Christ is prone to become a child of the devil and do his kind of destructive work (Jn. 8:31-47). Nature has already become the devil’s tool and so have many human beings.

God’s plan to redeem the world began with the coming of Jesus the Christ, the Son of God. “For God did not send his Son to condemn the world, but to save the world through him” (Jn. 3:17). Paul had this insight, “The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to the frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjects it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in pains of childbearing right up to the present time” (Ro. 8:19-22).

Paul and Peter believed that the Scriptures were a dictation of the Spirit of God (II Tim. 3:16; II Pe. 1:20-21), and Jesus admitted that they did not make sense to those that reason (Mt. 11:25); yet, they proceeded from the mouth of God (Mt. 4:4). God, The “I Am,” is eternal Spirit and Breath and so is the human soul (Ex. 4:14; Jn. 4:24). The Scriptures do say that God shaped man out of the earth and then “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being or soul” (Gen. 2:7). “It is the Spirit that gives life, the flesh is of no avail; the words that I have spoken to you are of the Spirit and they are life,” so stated Jesus. What we have is a migration of life or the soul or the spirit from God to a piece of clay, we call a man. Upon death, life or the soul or the spirit migrates from this earthly housing to a heavenly dwelling (II Cor. 5:1-2), where there is no death; but, there is a division between those that did what was right and those that did wrong (Ro. 2:5-11). Hence there are two worlds, heaven and hell (Lk. 16:19-31).

The Promises of God, how do they affect the future? There was a definite change with the arrival of Jesus. He became the future. A new age began with him and in him. It was Jesus who declared: “For all the Prophets and the Law prophesied until John” (Mt. 11:13). And, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law and the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them” (Mt. 5:17). Jesus’ Coming marked three major changes. The first and most important one was that man had a direct access to God in Christ. One no longer had to seek out a priest, go to a Temple or climb a Mountain to worship God (Jn. 4:21-24). The other was that God through Christ began to bring in a new order or kingdom that was not of this world (Mk. 1:15; Jn. 18:26). Jesus shifted the responsibility from a group or a nation to the individual. The reign of God began in man and not in a system or a religion (Lk. 17:20-21).

Paul's interpretation of the Antichrist and the last days gave rise to serious questions. The Gospel writers were not the only ones searching for answers. The writer of the Epistles of John became very specific regarding Antichrist and the end time. Please note that we are dealing with first generation Christians. John wrote to his followers: "Dear children, this is the last hour; and as you have heard that the Antichrist is coming, even now many Antichrist have come. This is how we know that it is the last hour" (I Jn. 2:18). "It is the man who denies that Jesus is the Christ. Such a man is Antichrist - he denies the Father and the Son (I Jn. 2:22). John continued: "Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves his child as well. This is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out his commands. This is love for God: to obey his commands. And his commands are not burdensome, for everyone born of God has overcome the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world, only he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God" (Jn. 5:1-5)?

Freedom in Paul’s world did not exist. He was persecuted, imprisoned and ultimately executed for his loyalty to Christ. It was under such uncertainties that Paul advocated freedom as being a state of mind. “Each one should remain in the situation which he was in when God called him. Were you a slave when you were called? Don’t let that trouble you – although if you can gain your physical freedom, do so. For he who was a slave when he was called by the Lord is the Lord’s freedman; similarly, he who was a free man when he was called is Christ’s slave. You were bought at a price; do not become slaves of men” (I Cor. 7:20-23). “You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love. The entire law is summed up in a single command, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’” (Gal. 5:13-14). In Paul’s freedom, the slaves behave and serve as if they were the masters and the masters behave as if they were the slaves (Eph. 6:5-9).

"Christ is the completion (telos) of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes" (Ro. 10:4). “So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and good” (Ro. 7:12). “For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous” (Ro. 2:13). “Do we, then, nullify the law by this faith? Not at all! Rather, we uphold the law” (Ro. 3:31).

“If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men” (I Cor. 15:19). “Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God” (Ro. 6:8-10).