I Keep Praying The Prayer Again

You told Jesus you had done wrong, that you believed He died to pay for it, and that you wanted Him. You said it out loud one night and meant every word.

Then you prayed it again a year later, because you couldn't tell whether the first one worked.

There's a question underneath it you'd never say out loud. Did I mean it enough?

Most of us treat that prayer like a form.

Say the words right, mean them all the way down, and it goes through.

That makes sense, because the Bible really does tell us to call on Him.

But calling on Him is how you came to God. It's not what keeps you there.

If it were, everything would hang on one sentence you said years ago and can't remember clearly, and you would never stop grading it.

The prayer was never what saved you.

Go back to the verse up top. We have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear.

Look at that little word, again.

A man named Paul wrote this letter, and he's writing to people who had already come out of that fear.

He's telling them God didn't send them back into it.

What we got instead was the Spirit of adoption.

Think about how adoption actually works.

A child doesn't adopt himself.

He doesn't file the papers, he doesn't stand in front of the judge, and nobody asks him to prove he wanted it bad enough.

Somebody else does every bit of it, and then he has a family.

That's what happened to you. You didn't get yourself in.

Whereby we cry, Abba, Father. Abba isn't a church word, it's what a kid calls his dad at home, and Paul says the Spirit put that word in our mouth.

Paul used to hunt Christians down.

He held the coats while a crowd stoned a Christian named Stephen to death.

Nobody had more reason to lie awake wondering whether God really took him, and he's the one telling us to call God Father.

You did not get the spirit of a slave who has to keep re-earning his place. You got the Spirit of a son, and a son does not knock on his own front door every night begging to be let back in.

You never saved yourself, so there is nothing for you to do over.

Stop searching your own feelings for the answer. You might go a long stretch without ever feeling settled about it, and plenty of solid believers do.

God hasn't been grading the prayers you already prayed, and He isn't waiting on a better one.

Here's how to stop re-praying the prayer today:

1. Thank Him for it instead of saying it again.

When you reach out to God in prayer tonight, try turning it into thanks instead.

You're not applying for a place you already have.

If you pray it again anyway, that's fine, because this isn't a new rule you can fail.

2. Read Romans 8 out loud, slow, all the way through.

Let Paul tell you what you received. You've been interrogating yourself for an answer the chapter hands you in plain words.

3. Say it out loud this week to one Christian you trust.

Fear like this gets worse when you keep it to yourself. Getting it out of your own head and in front of someone who knows God takes a lot of its power away.

PRAYER

Merciful Father, I've prayed that prayer more times than I can count, because I could never tell whether the first one took.

I've gone back over that day for years looking for proof I was never going to find.

Thank You that You adopted me, and that You did it and I didn't.

Thank You that Jesus settled all of it before I ever opened my mouth.

Today I leave it where You settled it.

Teach me to rest in what You did instead of scoring what I felt.

I believe You when You call me Yours.

Remind me whose house I live in on the nights it comes back around.

In Jesus' precious name we pray. Amen.